I detriti dell’anima. Geografie musicali diasporiche nel Mediterraneo

The bond between geography and music is unaccountably rare until the 90’s. After the Cultural Turn geographers began to explore music according to the sense of place. This was done through either a phenomenological approach or a travelling theory. This article examines the ways music and musicians produce places in terms of homogeneity or through the spaces of diasporas. Some music maps want to show the homogeneity of people, recalling the deep bond between music and territory. Others argue that music should be investigated as a counter-history where the musician’s spaces would be linked to his/her knowledge and sensitivity of mobility. Both the artists the article explores are diasporic voices. They are deliberately suspended between Africa and Europe, in a Mediterranean space that we can consider as a third space. Their stories, deeply different, tell us about how multiple identities are built through music.