Musical Diplomacy at the Peripheries: East Germany and the Postcolonial World

This project is concerned with how music was used to foster political relations between periphery states in the global Cold War. The research centres on the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and seeks to investigate how the state deployed music to improve its political standing with targeted countries in the postcolonial world. Based on extensive archival research and analytical methods drawn from international relations, postcolonial theory, and transnational history, the project aims to illuminate the mechanics of musical diplomacy at the Cold War peripheries, and to explore the politics of cultural transfer between socialist and postcolonial worlds.