Developing a Maritime-Led Framework for Global Music Study

After finishing my PhD, I found myself drawn to a larger question: what if we reimagined maritime music not as the local heritage of particular countries, but as a global, hybrid and constantly evolving tradition?

This question became the foundation of my next project, 'Developing a Maritime-Led Framework for Global Music Studies'. The core idea is both simple and radical: instead of focussing on land-based nations as the default unit of musical analysis, why not begin at sea?

Seafaring communities were multilingual, multiethnic and inherently mobile. Ships weren’t just moving between places, they were themselves cultural spaces, shaped by labour, improvisation, conflict and creativity. By starting with the ship, we can better understand how music travels, changes and builds identity across oceans.

My research objectives reflect this shift in thinking. I’m working to challenge nationalistic narratives in folk and maritime music studies, highlight the overlooked contributions of Afro-Caribbean and diasporic seafarers, and explore how songs emerged in spaces of linguistic mixture and social negotiation. This means looking closely at pidginised lyrics, cross-cultural influences, and the improvisational ways crews created shared sonic environments.

To do this, I’ve designed an interdisciplinary methodology that blends archival work, ethnomusicology, linguistic analysis and spatial theory. For instance, I’m drawing on ideas from scholars like Foucault, Lefebvre and Gilroy to reframe the ship not as an empty space, but as a heterotopia – a site that is at once regulated and generative, isolated yet connected, oppressive yet full of creative life.

The ultimate goal is to offer a new theoretical lens through which to study maritime music and, by extension, global musical traditions shaped by mobility, labour and encounter. This will be the focus of my imagined postdoctoral research, which I am currently seeking a fellowship position to develop.

If you’re interested in global music history, maritime culture, or the politics of tradition and authenticity, I’d love to share more. This project is still in progress and always growing through conversation and collaboration.