The reflections presented in this special issue are rooted in a series of paradoxes that have become increasingly apparent within a contemporary landscape marked by the simultaneous acceleration of global movements of people, capital, and cultural production, the strengthening of borders (Horvath, Pape, Delcroix & Inowlocki 2022; Robertson 1995), and the crystallization of conflicts and tensions rooted in political, religious, or cultural differences (Chattopadhyay 2018). The global cultural scene in particular is characterized by a contrasted interplay between the celebration of diversity and mobility and the harsh material realities and processes of censorship that artists, specifically those from the Global South (Santos & Meneses 2020), often face.

First, a flowering of new or recently visible artistic hubs is emerging outside the traditional artistic institutions in the West, such as the Museum of Black Civilizations in Dakar, the Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden in Marrakech, the Storyland Studios and Lagos Art World, or the 798 Art District Beijing, all contributing to a more diverse and interconnected global art world (Belting & Buddensieg 2009; Fratagnoli & Lassibille 2018). Nevertheless, the imposition of stringent visa and travel restrictions is inhibiting the free circulation of artists from these burgeoning Southern contexts, hindering the realization of the ideals of unrestricted physical and digital mobility associated with a globalized art community. Recent political crises in Sub-Saharan Africa have underscored this issue, highlighting the impact of travel restrictions on African artists who already face hurdles in gaining recognition when applying for visas (Gayot and Blanchard 2023). This further emphasizes how passport-related inequalities play a significant role in shaping the dynamics of the global cultural scene.

Second, while art scenes in the West proudly champion political free speech, diversity, and critical perspectives such as the “decolonial” or the “subaltern,” this theoretical and ideological stance warrants a critical examination. The dynamics of recognition within Western liberal discourses are indeed influenced by “regulatory ideals” that determine who can or cannot be deemed an intelligible subject (Butler & Athanasiou 2013). Moreover, as noted by Neveux regarding theatre in the French context (2019), advocating “political art” often results paradoxically in the neutralization of the political dimensions of artworks, confining them to types of conformity. The author attributes this phenomenon to the reduction of art to the neoliberal obsession for functionality (ibid.: 58), arguing that there is an increasing demand for art to deliver measurable social benefits, which burdens creation with the obligation to shape citizens and cultivate a “community life” (the vivre-ensemble) consistent with the representation of the political class that funds it (ibid.: 74). Consequently, creation is stripped of any capacity to engage in speculative thinking about “hypotheses of alternatives” (ibid.: 233). Beyond the French context, these tendencies have become apparent in recent controversies surrounding the globally renowned Documenta exhibitions that take place every five years in Kassel, Germany, which, in the last twenty years, have been curated by several directors (like Okwui Enwezor, responsible in 2002) and collectives born or living outside Europe (like the Indonesian group ruangrupa who signed the exhibition in 2022). The debates that unfolded around certain films and artworks exposed during documenta15 in 2022 exposed the tensions between different perceptions of the place of the political within contemporary art. Ultimately, these debates resulted in the resignation of a substantial group from the Documenta 2027 Finding Committee, underscoring the centrality of questions related to political statements (and their censorship) to artists’ careers and productions (Documenta 2024).

These paradoxes between a desired or proclaimed freedom of movement and existing actual restrictions, along with the tension between celebrating diversity and grappling with the concrete power dynamics and mechanisms of censorship or speech restrictions, give rise to inquiries that transcend the realm of global culture. These inquiries delve into the construction of social frontiers, questions of alterity and self-representation, and the dynamics of global power. Furthermore, they prompt us to scrutinize the perpetuation of problematic and essentializing categories in our social science disciplines, such as “diversity,” the dichotomy between the local and the global, or the distinctions between “economic migrants,” “refugees,” and “expatriates.”

In this Special Issue, we center our attention on music and dance practices to contribute to recent initiatives in critical migration studies that aim to reassess normative categories and distinctions, placing the emphasis on people’s agency in challenging and deconstructing categorization and othering in border regimes. How can a focus on music and dance practices inspire scholars in migration and diversity studies to reassess normative categories and deconstruct alterities that persist from both emic and etic perspectives? In what ways can a focus on dance and music practices and practitioners support us in challenging notions such as “migrant,” “migration,” “alterity,” “North,” and “South,” thereby highlighting their normative dimensions? How might we conceptualize the cultural hybridizations and syncretism generated by the movements of people, artistic creations, and information by taking into account both people’s creativity and the institutional constraints they face?

The contributions to this special issue endeavor to tackle these questions by opening up new perspectives on the movements of practices, practitioners, and representations of music and dance. By delving into the realms of music and dance practices and their practitioners, exploring their mobility and the obstacles they encounter, the authors raise new epistemological and ethical questions that are inherent in critical migration and diversity studies. Moreover, they shed light on how such a focus reveals asymmetries and power relationships that extend beyond art worlds, permeating representations of alterity and echoing in global economic and political disparities. Lastly, they demonstrate the instrumentality of in-depth ethnographic approaches in comprehending how categories are constructed, perpetuated, reversed, or strategically employed by institutions and migrating artists. To achieve this, the contributions draw on insights from migration and globalization studies, along with original research material delving into the significance of music and dance within these fields.

Overall, the Special Issue showcases the contribution that research on music and dance can offer to scholarship on borders and mobilities. Since the 1990s, the “mobility turn” has undeniably spurred significant advances in the social sciences. By embracing an analytical framework that shifts the focus towards human movement, rather than perpetuating the social ideals of immobility or sedentariness, this body of scholarship has facilitated exploration of the inherent fluidity in contemporary global processes (Sheller & Urry 2006; Urry 2007; Cresswell & Merriman 2011). In this sense, geographically defined categories have shown their limits, such that a broader understanding of the “situated politics of belonging” (Yuval-Davis, Viethen & Kannabiran 2006) is now common sense.

Expanding on this paradigm shift, on the other hand, recent publications have initiated a critical re-evaluation of an exclusive focus on mobility (Ortar, Salzbrunn & Stock 2018; Glick Schiller & Çağlar 2011; Schmoll 2020), recognizing the risk of obscuring inequalities in accessing mobility and the various downsides associated with the logics of circulation. Moreover, these critiques shed light on how immobility and barriers to movement are integral components of many life paths (Timera 2009). In-depth examinations of migration trajectories in particular have brought to light the intricate interplay of inequalities and complex tensions between obstacles and circulation that significantly impact issues of mobility, citizenship and belonging in the contemporary world (Agier 2002; Agier 2013; Agier & Lecadet 2014; Vertovec 2010).

In recent decades, these approaches have been invigorated by a growing interest in artistic practices, with music and dance emerging as particularly illuminating avenues for rethinking transnational and mobility-centered approaches to migration studies (Capone & Salzbrunn 2018; Aterianus-Owanga, Djebbari & Salzbrunn 2019; Andrieu & Rinaudo 2023; Sievers 2024). These creative expressions and their subsequent circulation are not solely influenced by the rise of transnational relationships and networks, but also actively contribute to the formation of global and interconnected local imaginaries and “ways of life” (Wulff 1998, 2007; Bohlman 2002).

Scholars focusing on artists’ trajectories and biographies have underscored the agency of migrants and minorities, challenging previous perceptions that portrayed them as subjects confined by institutional borders or as a homogeneous group of victims (Martiniello, Puig, & Suzanne 2009). More recently, the emancipatory power of music within the context of forced migration has been recognized, particularly among young refugees (Laborde 2023; Sarroy & Kyratsou forthcoming). Finally, analyses of artists’ careers have demonstrated the impact of migration policies on professional achievements (Le Menestrel 2012), as well as how artistic practices provide individuals with access to new social positions, reshuffling local and global hierarchies (Neveu Kringelbach 2013; Sorignet 2010). This research has addressed a gap in migration and diversity studies by highlighting the ways in which artists navigate, divert, and subvert the power regimes to which they are subjected (Derderian 2024). Hence, the present special issue about research on music and dance makes significant contributions to the field of the autonomy of migration. Alternative imaginaries of borders (Metcalfe 2022) can be expressed through dance and music practices, and obstacles can be overcome symbolically, although there are still persistent juridical and physical frontiers (Hess 2017). Nevertheless, the focus on migrants’ agency through their creativity, artistic practices and trajectories contributes a great deal to renewing the perspective on the autonomy of migration.

On a more interpersonal and intersubjective level, the surge in artists’ mobility has given rise to the interweaving of new intimacies and “passionate encounters” (Davis 2015) revolving around the music and dance practices that transcend national borders. The proliferation of courses dedicated to “exotic” dance forms in Western national contexts since the 1990s (Apprill, Djakouane & Nicolas-Daniel 2013) has contributed notably to the emergence of new forms of tourism centered on the practice of diverse dances in various locations (Menet 2020; Aterianus-Owanga 2018). This in turn has created professional and mobility opportunities for artists. Although such encounters are inevitably marked by economic and socio-political inequalities, scholars have also shed light on the criticality and agencies that emerge when individuals confront the “Other,” thereby emphasizing the role of artistic conventions in shaping these encounters (Aterianus-Owanga 2021).

These perspectives have facilitated the re-evaluation of dominant discourses and dichotomies, emphasizing the importance of specific methodological approaches. On the one hand, studies of transnational and translocal collaborations and funding have revealed new hierarchies, asymmetries, and power relations influenced by various forms of mobility and immobility. For instance, Altaïr Despres (2016) combines an analysis of historical and (post)colonial relationships between France and African countries with an examination of artists’ trajectories, challenging representations of cultural globalization as a movement from a centre to peripheries or as a process of deterritorialization. Instead, Despres illuminates how the links that people and institutions forge in a specific socio-historical context shape the emergence of determined art forms in certain locations. Similarly, by incorporating the analysis of the aesthetic content of artworks into research methods, other inquiries have redefined discussions surrounding hegemony and cultural appropriation (Andrieu 2014; Slitine 2018). Through analysis of the logics that underlie creative processes, authors reveal the constant exchanges and inspirations that shape creation. This recentres the debates on individual and collective agencies and values, shifting the focus away from aesthetic impositions or plundering.

These viewpoints emphasize that cultural exchanges and circulations are nuanced and resist oversimplification into stereotypical relations between the privileged and the underprivileged or between the “North” and the “South” (Neveu Kringelbach & Skinner 2012). Although in some cases the traditional opposition between agency-oriented and structuralist views remains evident in the analysis of art worlds (Aterianus-Owanga, Gaulier & Navarro 2022), a prevailing approach should involve a combination of situated ethnographic research perspectives with a thorough analysis of contextual inequalities and historical frames. In essence, these perspectives, with their emphasis on agents or cultural brokers in a translocal perspective, have illuminated practices that, while shaped by the movements and interactions of agents beyond national borders, rely on these agents’ capacity to navigate structures of opportunity in a specific locality. This involves adapting to the material, social, and political conditions in place and establishing both symbolic and material roots in that space (Capone & Salzbrunn 2018: 12).

The papers featured in this special issue build upon and further contribute to these emerging reflections by delving into three key dimensions of migration and diversity studies that are rejuvenated through research on music and dance: ethical and epistemological inquiries; considerations of asymmetries and power relations; and lastly, methodological considerations. Recognizing the richness that diverse perspectives on migrating through the arts can bring to these topics, the guest editors assembled contributors with backgrounds in ethnomusicology, anthropology, sociology, and dance studies, fostering an interdisciplinary dialogue. The geographical scope covered by the contributors extends from South and North America to Europe, Africa, and SWANA (Southwest Asia and North Africa).