Overview

Arab Techno for the People analyses electronic music soundscapes as a field site to explore the lived experiences of cosmopolitan, Arab individuals living in Toronto and Montreal, Canada. This book seeks to move readers—and Canadians more broadly—to a more nuanced understanding of the misinterpellation, discrimination, and racism faced by those perceived as Arab and/or Muslim in Canada. Despite the expectation that they will confirm to unified and reductive definitions of Arab and Muslim identities, Arab house and techno musicians who are understood as (or understand themselves as) Arab in Montreal and Toronto use their musical participation to define themselves in diverse ways contingent on their ethnic, religious, gender, and sexual identities. This book proposes that the Arab diaspora in multicultural Canada can be “sounded” by unveiling the experience of memory and nostalgia, presence and absence, racism and (mis)interpellation, and the various subtle realities that Arabs must consider when ethically navigating such cultural complexities. This ethnography is a reflection of musical practices beyond the dancefloor as coping methods with systemic racism. Fulton-Melanson’s whiteness is vital to the conversation and reflection of decolonial and anti-racist methodology. The objective is that readers will recognize their own racist assumptions in the text and actively redress them.

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9781771127080

Table of Contents

Reviews

Arab Techno for the People is post-Orientalist ethnography at full volume. With drawings, music samples, and perceptive prose, Fulton-Melanson narrates scenes of Arab diaspora DJs and dancers across Toronto and Montreal. Participants remix identity at every dial with techno beats and maqam-inflected tones, flipping chaotic and drug-infused underground music spaces into places of civility, sacredness, and, ultimately, home. Shake off your wild, along with these artists, as they create possibilities for liberation. - Jared Holton, Hugh Hodgson School of Music, University of Georgia Arab Techno for the People pulses with the rhythms of complex, interconnected lives. Conceptually capacious and eloquent, Fulton-Melanson weaves together threads of fieldwork vignettes, interviews, conversations, embodied experiences, and chance encounters into a vivid tapestry of insightful storytelling. This book captures the throb and flow of Arab techno worlds in Toronto and Montreal through snapshots, sketches, sounds, and stories that speak to the complexities of diasporic dancefloors, buzzing with connection and tension, yearning and release. - Luis Manuel Garcia-Mispireta, author of Together Somehow: Music, Affect, and Intimacy on the Dancefloor (2023)

Author Information

Jillian Fulton-Melanson is based between Toronto and Casablanca. She holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from York University and has training in ethnomusicology, education, and music performance. She is a member of various education and research teams at York University, the Glenn Gould School at the Royal Conservatory of Music, the Society for Ethnomusicology, and the Polish Academy of Sciences.

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