Cristina Moreno Almeida

Research Officer

Dr Cristina Moreno Almeida is Research Officer working on the project ‘Personalised Media and Participatory Culture’ at the LSE Middle East Centre and the Department of Media and Communications. She completed her PhD dissertation entitled ‘Critical Reflections on Rap Music in Contemporary Morocco: Urban Youth Culture Between and Beyond State's Co-optation and Dissent’ at SOAS in 2015. Prior to her doctoral studies, she obtained an MA in Arabic Literature and graduated in Translation and Interpretation and in Arabic Philology.

Cristina is an active member of several international research groups based in the UK, Morocco and Spain. She has lived in Morocco for over four years collecting data and working in the cultural field where she researched strategies of cultural intervention as well as stimulated on-going collaborations between young artists, institutions and academia. She is also involved in organising and participating in public engagement events that disseminate academic work to broader audiences. 

Research Interests

Cristina's research focuses on Cultural Studies particularly examining:

• youth
• popular, urban and digital cultures
• music and hip hop
• nationalism and transnational identities
• gender and ‘race’

Contact Details

Email:  c.moreno-almeida@lse.ac.uk
Twitter:  @CrisMorAlm

Selected Publications

• Moreno, C. 2016. “Imagining the Enemy: The Role of Patriotic Rap Songs in Curbing Critical Voices in Morocco.” In Mokhtari (ed), Otherness Unbound: Spaces of Identity in the Postcolonial MENA Region.

• Moreno, 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.: University of North Carolina Press, pp.78-104 (Forthcoming September 2016).

• Moreno, 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.

• Moreno, 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. 

• Moreno, 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, 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.

• Moreno, 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. 

• Calvo, E.; Comes, M.; Díaz Fajardo, M.; Moreno, C.; Rius, M.; Romo, E., 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.