I am an anthropologist and ethnomusicologist with an interest in the relationship between politics and aesthetics. In 2012, I went to study French and Arabic in Tunis, Tunisia, where I became very interested in what music and musicians were saying about the revolutionary moment. All of my research since then has been based in Tunis, where my focus has shifted to perceptions of media archives of sound and music, their histories and formations, and the ways that they shape time and space. I am currently thinking more about the ways that practitioners in Tunisia create conditions necessary for creativity, navigating complex and unequal flows of materials, capital, and people.

Over the years I have practiced singing, voice acting, oud playing, filming, dancing, and stop-motion animating – so I’m fascinated by the multiple ways in which creativity and experimentation can guide our research processes, collaborations, and presentations. My fieldwork involved the recording of thousands of ‘snippets’ of sound and image, taken around the city of Tunis between 2019 and 2022. These snippets are forming the basis of artworks by the Tunis-based artist Lotfi Ghariani, in our exhibition entitled ‘Sonic Time in Tunis’, to be displayed in Belfast in 2025. I also organised a UK-based tour with Tunisian oud player and fellow anthropologist Abderraouf Ouertani in August 2024, during which we explored the potential of oud wanderings as a basis for anthropological wondering.