| Summary: | Political geography has devoted substantial attention to visual popular culture. Where the aural has been considered, this has generally been through the spoken-word (e.g. radio) or lyrics (e.g. popular music). The geopolitics of instrumental music – music without words – is yet to be considered in depth. This article provides an outline of how such media might be approached, building on affectual analyses of sound in human geography. In particular, it examines the example of instrumental film score. It suggests that, rather than just providing background to the visual component of film, score provides a key mode through which geopolitical knowledges are communicated. Through case studies of musical constructions of identity/difference from three geopolitical periods – World War Two, the Cold War, and the War on Terror – this article makes the case for adding instrumental musical literacy to political geography's methodological toolkit.
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