Negotiating Relationships: The potential role of musicians in Mohammad bin Salman's Vision 2030

The proposed research project aims to investigate how effectively developing countries deal with sociocultural obstacles when pursuing Creative Industry (CI) development with the purpose of revenue diversification and economic transformation. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's attempts to develop a music industry during a period of dramatic socio-political shifts has been selected as the case study of choice due to the legal and cultural restrictions that have forced this industry to develop almost exclusively underground for the past three decades. This project will investigate the effect of the KSA's current socioeconomic transition on local musicians and their creative output.