Lisa Tuyala is Project Manager of the Global Music B.A. program at the Popakademie Baden-Württemberg. Her research at mdw explores the impact of German foreign cultural policy on African-European music networks.

From 2023 to 2025, she served as co-Artistic Director and Managing Co-Director of RAMPE in Stuttgart. Previously, she was Deputy Managing Director of the sociocultural center Kkt (2017–2023). Before that, she worked as a freelance musician, performer, and vocal coach, initiating projects such as the concert series Sonntags:Musik and co-founding the network Women* of Music (W*oM).

She holds a B.Mus. in Jazz Vocals from the Royal Conservatoire The Hague and an M.A. in International Arts and Cultural Management from Leuphana University Lüneburg in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut. She is also active in cultural policy, including roles with the German Jazz Prize, the Centre for Cultural Participation Baden-Württemberg, and Initiative Musik.


The role of Germany’s foreign cultural policy in the formation of African-European music networks

This dissertation examines contemporary power relations and historical entanglements within African–European music networks facilitated by German Foreign Cultural Policy. In recent years, German cultural diplomacy has increasingly emphasized dialogue, partnership, and the overcoming of colonial continuities. However, the artistic spaces created through or within Germanys policy frameworks require closer investigation regarding how they are structured, conceptualized, and experienced by the actors involved.

Taking a critical perspective on Bourdieu’s field theory as a starting point, particular attention is given to the politics of order, the modern separation of societal spheres, and how these distinctions may shape inclusion, exclusion, and audibility within Afro-European music relations.

Further, adopting a future-oriented perspective, the project asks how past and present institutional and individual conceptual frameworks shape the conditions under which alternative collective futures can be imagined and practiced.