Music as Cultural Diplomacy: Analyzing the Role of Musical Flows from the Arab Levant to New Cultural Poles in the Arab Gulf in the Twenty-First Century

This chapter examines the flows of musics, musicians, aesthetics, and ideologies between the Arab Levant and the Gulf. It questions the centrality of such flows in reconfiguring Arab regional dynamics with new centers for cultural production in the Arab Gulf region, facilitated by a collective investment—‘cultural capital’—aided by online digital media tools. This strategy, I argue, connects cultural diplomacy with rebranding strategies leveraging conservative Arab Gulf societies into twenty-first century competitive international cultural markets.