More than Just a Soundtrack: Towards a Technology of the Collective in Hardcore Punk

• In Event: 148 - Regular Session. Cultural Studies 1: Identity in Action: Music, Religion and the Everyday

Abstract

We study the musical genre of punk to discuss how the embodiment of music and musical practices operate as a “technology of the collective.” This furthers our understanding how music, as a cultural form, becomes a tangible resource used in the constitution of collective identity. By utilizing the subculture of hardcore punk as a vehicle for exploration, this approach helps us understand how musical practices operate at the analytical level of embodied practices. We explore how aspects of embodiment illuminate displays of involvement and group membership, as well as solidarity and community. Music becomes the conduit between identity, conventionalized expressions, and the ways people form investments to configure their social worlds.

Authors

• Black Hawk Hancock, DePaul University

• Michael J. Lorr, Florida State College-Jacksonville