Just Singing a Song (in the Key of Neil Young): The Politics of Resistance, Oil and Indigenous Rights

• In Event: Cultural Representations of (In)justice

Abstract

As part of a larger examination into the role Neil Young’s music has played in the communication of resistance and social justice issues over a career that has spanned nearly five decades, this paper focuses on the musician’s recent Honour the Treaties Tour and its critics. Situating his politics and biography within a critical cultural criminology lens, I demonstrate how Young’s expansive history of music, film and activism stands as a manifestation of broader cultural tensions around war, inequality, and Indigenous rights.

Author

• Deborah Landry, University of Ottawa