Dr Cristina Moreno Almeida

Profile

I’m interested in cultural production and digital cultures at the intersection of aesthetics, politics, and power with a particular interest in North Africa and the Middle East. In 2016, I was awarded a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship (Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London) to research Moroccan digital cultures looking at the social, cultural, and political ramifications of disseminating cultural production through digital platforms. I previously worked at the LSE Middle East Centre and the Department of Media and Communications on the project ‘Personalised Media and Participatory Culture’ (2015-2017) with the American University of Sharjah (UAE) researching young people’s participatory culture, the internet and creative production in Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, and the UAE.

I’m particularly interested in youth culture and rap music, memes and digital cultural production, discourses on power and resistance, patriotism and nationalism including renewed forms of Far-Right. My first book Rap Beyond Resistance: Staging Power in Contemporary Morocco (Palgrave, 2017) challenges dominant narratives of cultural resistance when it comes to Hip Hop culture in the Arabic-speaking world. The book discusses the tension between state-sponsored discourses in Morocco and artists search for strategies to capitalise on these discourses to their advantage and to overcome mediatic and economic censorship. My most recent research interests concern digital cultures looking at memes, politics, and digital aesthetics. As a result, my second book Memes, Monsters, and the Digital Grotesque (forthcoming with Oxford University Press) investigates the role of memes and other forms of digital cultural production in employing grotesque aesthetics to speak about contemporary monsters and politics online.

Over the years, I have been involved in different events with young artists such Fábrica de Rimas/Fabrique des Rimes (Rhyme Factory) which brought together rappers from Colombia and Morocco (2012-2015) or the Pop- Up Studios project with the British Council in Morocco where I shared my experience in the music field with young upcoming artists. I’m also the organiser of (Beat)Making the North African Cool!, a beat-making workshop focused on North African music as part of the Being Human Festival (2019).

Teaching

Culture and Language (Seminars for Liberal Arts)

Research

Research Interests:

• Cultural Studies
• Digital Cultures
• Music and Youth Cultures
• Power and Resistance
• Nationalism and Patriotism
• Far-Right
• North Africa and the Middle East

Publications

Books

Moreno-Almeida, C. Memes, Monsters, and the Digital Grotesque (forthcoming 2023 with Oxford University Press)

Moreno-Almeida, C. 2017. Rap Beyond ‘Resistance’: Staging Power in Contemporary Morocco. London: Palgrave McMillan

Articles

Moreno-Almeida, C. & Gerbaudo, P. 2021. “Memes and the Moroccan Far-Right.” The International Journal of Press/Politics, 26 (4), pp. 882-906. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161221995083  

Crooke, A., Moreno-Almeida, C., Comte, R. 2021. “A Critical Interpretive Synthesis of Research Linking Hip Hop and Wellbeing in Schools.” Journal of Hip Hop Studies, 8 (1), pp. 127-160. Available at https://doi.org/10.34718/ts65-ky23  

Moreno-Almeida, C. 2020. “Memes as Snapshots of Political Participation: The Role of Digital Amateur Activists in Authoritarian Regimes” New Media and Society, 23(6), pp. 1545.1566. Available at https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444820912722

Banaji, S & Moreno-Almeida, C. 2020. “Politicising Creativity at The Margins: The Significance of Class, Gender and Sexuality for the Politics of Online Youth Networks in The MENA Region.” Global Media and Communication, 17(1), pp. 121-142. Available at https://doi.org/10.1177/1742766520982029  

Crooke, A., Comte, R. & Moreno-Almeida, C. 2020. “Hip Hop as an Agent for Health and Wellbeing in Schools: A Narrative Synthesis of Existing Research.” VOICES, 20 (1). Available at https://voices.no/index.php/voices/article/view/2870/2929?fbclid=IwAR0JMclovuddTpQIPbDdm2g7mLZo1hnpenxT4HpJtVpqkr3J_g5-Fwrhd7Y

Moreno-Almeida, C. & Banaji, S. 2019. “Digital Use and Mistrust in the Aftermath of the Arab Spring: Beyond Narratives of Liberation and Disillusionment.” Media, Culture & Society, 41(8), pp.1125-1141. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443718823143

Crooke, A & Moreno-Almeida, C. 2017. “‘It’s good to know something real and all that’: Exploring the Benefits of a School-Based Hip Hop Program.” Australian Journal of Music Education, 51(1), 13-28. Available at: https://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=967435258266803;res=IELHSS

Banaji, S & Moreno-Almeida, C. 2017. “From Passion to Activism? The Politics, Communications and Creativity of Participatory Networks in The MENA Region”. LSE Middle East Centre Report, pp. 1-20

Moreno-Almeida, C. 2017. “Reporting on Selective Voices of Resistance: Secularism, Class and Islamist Rap.” International Journal of Cultural Studies, 21 (4), pp. 343-358. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/1367877917694093

Moreno-Almeida, C. 2015. “The Politics of Taqlidi Rap: Reimagining Moroccanness in the Era of Global Flows.” Journal of North African Studies 21 (1), pp. 116-131. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13629387.2015.1084101

Moreno-Almeida, C. 2014. “La Evolución de las Distintas Voces del Rap en Marruecos: Más Allá de la Cooptación y la Disidencia.” AWRAQ 10, pp. 123-139. Available at: http://www.awraq.es/blob.aspx?idx=5&nId=120&hash=c1aae77d8b69714c501459e4ea1702cf

Moreno-Almeida, C. 2013. “Unraveling Distinct Voices in Moroccan Rap: Evading Control, Weaving Solidarities and Building New Spaces for Self-expression.” Journal of African Cultural Studies, Special Issue: Contemporary Moroccan Cultural Production: Between Dissent and Co-optation 25 (3), pp. 319-332. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13696815.2013.820130

Calvo, E. et al., 2009. “Aplicación de las Nuevas Tecnologías a la Enseñanza del Árabe En La Universidad: el Proyecto Árabe En Línea (Ael) del GIDC Luga De La UB.” Arabele, Madrid: Casa Árabe, pp. 89-102

Book Chapters and Contributions

Moreno-Almeida, C. “Moroccan Hip Hop Queens: A Herstory of Hip Hop Culture in Morocco” In Loubna Skalli Hanna & Nahed Eltantawy (eds), Palgrave Handbook on Communication and Gender in MENA, Palgrave McMillan (forthcoming 2022)

Moreno-Almeida, C. “Dismembering Al-Andalus: The Memetic Afterlives of the Andalusi song “Chams al Achya.” In Charles Hirschkind & Matthew Machin-Autenrieth (eds), The Musical Afterlives of al-Andalus: Identities and Encounters beyond History, Open Book Publishers (forthcoming 2023).

Moreno-Almeida, C. 2020. “Forgotten Encounters: Sounds of Coexistence in Moroccan Rap Music.” In Sami Everett & Rebekah Vince (ed), Jewish Muslim Interactions: Performing Cultures between North Africa and France. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, pp. 161-180

Moreno-Almeida, C. 2016. “‘Race’ and ‘Blackness’ in Moroccan Rap: Voicing Local Experiences of Marginality.” In Alex Lubin and Marwan Kraidy (eds.), American Studies Encounters the Middle East. Chapel Hill, N.C.: The University of North Carolina Press, pp. 81-105

Moreno-Almeida, C. 2016. “Imagining the Enemy: The Role of Patriotic Rap Songs in Curbing Critical Voices in Morocco.” In Najib Mokhtari (ed), Decentering Patterns of Otherness: Towards an Asymmetrical Transcendence of Identity in Postcolonial MENA. Rabat: Babel; UIR Press, pp. 187-201

Moreno-Almeida, C. 2014. “From the West Coast to Tangier: Translocal Hip Hop in the New Morocco.” In Alex Lubin (ed), Shifting Borders: America and the Middle East/North Africa: proceedings of the fourth international conference sponsored by CASAR at AUB, Beirut: American University of Beirut Press, pp. 81-91

Moreno-Almeida, C. 2014. “‘Arab Spring’ and Hip Hop ‘Cool.’” In Said Graiouid and Taieb Belghazi (eds), Migration, Human Rights and the Politics of Identity in a Globalized World, Rabat: Faculté des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines de Rabat, pp. 223-237

Online publications

The Revival of Moorish Empire and the Moroccan Far Right. Jadaliyya. Available at: https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/42600/The-Revival-of-Moorish-Empire-and-the-Moroccan-Far-Right (2021)

Revisiting the Cultural Field in Morocco and Tunisia after the ‘Arab Spring’. Middle East Centre Blog. Blog entry. Available at: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2017/12/03/revisiting-the-cultural-field-in-morocco-and-tunisia-after-the-arab-spring/ (2017)

Making Space for Aesthetics in the Arabic Rap Scene. Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Sound and Music. Blog entry. Available at: https://www.palgrave.com/gp/campaigns/sound-and-music/almeida-blog (2017)