Past and Present Musical Encounters across the Strait of Gibraltar (MESG) is a five-year research project (2018–23) funded by a European Research Council Starting Grant.
It will examine the importance of music for the construction of a collective cultural memory between North Africa and Southern Europe, both in the colonial past and the postcolonial present. Combining archival research and ethnographic fieldwork, the project will bring together different geographical, linguistic and musical specialisms, leading towards an integrated understanding of musical exchange in the region.