Gwendolen von Einsiedel

Ethnomusicology; anthropology; Louisiana; zydeco; music and resistance; creolization; race; human-animal relationships; music and horses; sound studies.

Gwendolen is a doctoral candidate in Ethnomusicology at St Catherine’s College, University of Oxford. Her research investigates the connections between humans, non-humans and zydeco music at Creole trail rides in Southwest Louisiana. In light of their transient and mobile nature, trail rides offer a unique opportunity to consider the power of human / nonhuman entanglements and their impact on social becoming and collective solidarity. Gwendolen’s research explores what these entanglements can contribute to current understandings of creolization and how they can become tools for self-making and resistance in light of the region’s complex racial history.
She is a recipient of a Global South Fellowship from the New Orleans Center for the Gulf South at Tulane University to support this research.

Gwendolen holds a MA (Hons) in Social Anthropology from The University of Edinburgh and a MA in Classical and Contemporary Performance from The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Gwendolen has produced several audio-slideshows for the BBC and is a regular host of The Nest Collective Hour on Resonance FM.

Her TORCH podcast series, ‘Singing Windrush: Calypso in Britain’ can be heard here

AHRC DTP Studentship

AHRC Research Training Support Grant for Overseas Research

Global South Fellowship (Tulane University)

Chamberlain Internship Award (St Catherine’s College)