My work is about musical interactions : what "special" things people do with music. By "special" I mean those interactions which music enables or facilitates, and which would have been impossible or more difficult otherwise. Think of "extreme" things like bringing gods to dance among humans during a possession ritual, but also more mundane ones, like enchanting a dull metro travel with your headphones on. Enchantment is actually a key concept in my approach of music. In this I try follow the pioneering work of Alfred Gell, who first theorized the "technologies of enchantment". I take music to be one of them.

Since October 2011, I work as a permanent researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France. I'm currently director of the Ethnomusicology research center, and sub-director of the Centre for Ethnology and Comparative Sociology. In 2013 the CNRS awarded me its honorific "bronze medal".

Read below about my research topics or jump to my publications list.