ABSTRACT
This chapter examines musical labour and refugee experiences, drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with Afghans in Vienna, Austria. It presents the study’s political environment, shaped by restrictive asylum policies and derogatory media narratives that incite anti-Muslim racism and racialised Othering. In tracing conceptualisations of musical labour in Afghan musical practice, I present historical accounts, then turn to the younger history of Afghan musical labour, discussing musical work on Radio Afghanistan during the 1970s and the harsh caesura in musical life during the Taliban regime. The popular television show Afghan Star and its significance in relation to work in the music entertainment sector gives a more recent perspective on Afghan musical labour. The main section presents ethnographic descriptions of four case studies of musicians living in Vienna and London whose musical labour is connected to their refugee experiences, addressing work conditions, musical spaces and performance occasions. In addition to Vienna-based musicians Bahram Ajezyar and Haroon Andeshwar, I link musical labour to the asylum process through the case of an anonymised musician. I further present London-based singer Elaha Soroor’s musical career path, which eludes the mainstream constraints of Afghan pop. The last section examines the affective labour of musicians within the refugee experience, highlighting the evocation of shared narratives of belonging in Afghan music performances as well as the symbolic economy of musical authenticity that the majority society attributes to refugee musicians. This chapter was written before the Taliban seized Kabul in the summer of 2021. Although the text has been roughly adapted to the new political circumstances, it can only deficiently address how musical labour will change under the second Taliban regime.
