Cape Town Harmonies

Armelle Gaulier holds a doctorate in political science from the Bordeaux Institute of Political Studies. She conducted research on the musics of the Kaapse Klopse and the Malay Choirs in 2006 and 2008, and was granted two masters degrees from the University of Paris 8-Saint Denis for dissertations based on her fieldwork in Cape Town. She is currently a post-doctoral fellow at the Bordeaux Institute of Political Studies. Her research focuses on the relationship between music, politics and identity, with a particular interest in the symbolic power of music, and in musical practices and experiences of citizenship, especially within groups of migrants. 

Denis-Constant Martin is an Outstanding Senior Research Fellow of the French National Foundation for Political Sciences, attached to the Centre les Afriques dans le monde (Sciences Po Bordeaux, University of Bordeaux, France). He taught political development at Sciences Po Paris, the sociology of popular music at the University of Paris 8-Saint Denis and political anthropology at Sciences Po Bordeaux. His research focuses on the relationship between culture and politics, and attempts to interpret the social representations citizens have about power systems through the study of their cultural practices. He has published widely on culture and politics, and on the political uses of social identities. For more than twenty years, he has been conducting research in and on South Africa, with a special interest in Cape Town’s cultures. He is the author of Coon Carnival: New Year in Cape Town, Past and Present, as well as of several academic articles and volumes on Cape Town’s music and festivals.