Afghan Diaspora

by Marko Kölbl

Research on Afghan music in Austria started in February 2016 with the research project Musical Identifications of Young Refugees, conducted by Ursula Hemetek and Marko Kölbl, funded by the vice rectorate for organisational development, gender and diversity. This researched responded to the political climate after the long summer of migration 2015 in a time where forced migration and refugees entered center stage within political and medial discourse. Soon, the project more and more focused on a specific group that has significantly grown, the Afghan community in Vienna. After finishing the project in March 2018 (project report, in German) the research interest shifted from musical identifications and diasporic relocation through music to a comprehensive research on spaces of Afghan music and dance in Vienna. A dialogical knowledge production – the participatory shaping of the research process – constited the central methodical principle in researching the music of the Afghan diaspora in Vienna. Accordingly, Afghan students, enrolled in the MORE-programme are involved in the research since sommersemester 2017 via the department’s field work course. In February 2018, Marko Kölbl and Hamidreza Ojaghi conducted field research on Afghan music in Iran, especially in the cities Teheran and Mashad. All fieldwork material on the Afghan diaspora are part of the department’s archive (FL and IR in progress). Research findings are regularly presented at international conferences and have been published, e.g. in the Yearbook Music and Gender (in German).

There is exchange with international centers of expertise, like the Afghanistan Music Unit of Goldsmiths University London or the Afghanistan Music Research Center of the Franz-Liszt-Hochschule in Weimar. In the frame of the research, there are also cooperations with Viennese cultural institutions, like the Vienna Festival or Salam Orient, leading to an increased visibility and audability of Afghan music in the Austrian public. Generally the research is oriented towards the wishes and needs of the Afghan community in Austria, aiming at socio-political influence and trying to fight anti-Muslim racism with music- and dance-centered perspectives.

Applications for third-party funds are in preparation.