Listening to the monkey: Class, youth and the formation of a musical habitus

Rimmer, Mark

doi:10.1177/1466138109339115

Cited by 12 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…We wished to generate an empathetic understanding in readers unlikely to be familiar with groups like the MAC (Brunwick & Coghlan, 2007;Cunliffe, 2010;Watson, 2012) and to challenge dominant understandings through contact with the other (see Barnard, 2011;Glass, 2012;Morris, 2012;Rimmer, 2010, for example), enabling marginalised voices to be heard (Imas, Wilson, & Weston, 2012), and remedying a 'apolitical reading of organizing' (Ybema, Yanow, Vels, & Kamsteeg, 2009, p.7).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Music was particularly important at MAC events, and reinforced a common youth sub-cultural identity (Glass, 2012;McDonald, 2006;Rimmer, 2010) whilst providing a (small) income for some of its producers. Music production drew on the festival culture, connecting the MAC to a counter-cultural tradition that linked identity projects to a tradition of protest and lifestyle politics reaching back over five decades (McDonald, 2006).…”

Section: An Account Of a Subsequent Festival Event By Author 2 Based mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Organizing for Individuation: Alternative Organizing, Politics and New Identities

Reedy

King

Coupland

2016

Organization Studies

101

184

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Organization theorists have predominantly studied identity and organizing within the managed work organization. This frames organization as a structure within which identity work occurs, often as a means of managerial control. In our paper our contribution is to develop the concept of individuation pursued through prefigurative practices within alternative organizing to reframe this relation. We combine recent scholarship on alternative organizations and new social movements to provide a theoretical grounding for an ethnographic study of the prefigurative organizing practices and related identity work of an alternative group in a UK city. We argue that in such groups, identity, organizing and politics become a purposeful set of integrated processes aimed at the creation of new forms of life in the here and now, thus organizing is politics is identity. Our study presents a number of challenges and possibilities to scholars of organization, enabling them to extend their understanding of organization and identity in the contemporary world. Vignette 1: An introduction to the Midtown alternative sceneOn a cold and windswept evening in March we gathered at a small organic wholefood co-operative shop amongst insalubrious takeaways in one of the scruffier parts of Midtown. As we arrived, greetings were called, mugs of tea made, and soon 25 people were crammed into the room. Although a public meeting, many participants already knew each other. The 'formal' part of the evening began when those who had initiated the meeting, including Author 2, explained that they wanted to bring likeminded people together to forge closer ties and foster joint action. Each of us explained who we were, why we were there, and what group we belonged to (if any). This was 1 recorded on flip charts and minuted for later distribution. Although membership overlapped considerably, there were around twenty groups including environmental organizations, radical political parties, local activist groups, alternative food and craft retailing, arts and music groups; many belonged to several of these groups simultaneously.Most were young (between 25 and 40) and their appearance often reflected alternative youth sub-cultural norms -a 'hippyish' look for women, dreadlocks and goatee beards for men, although older attendees wore jumpers, t-shirts and jeans. Everyone seemed happy at a slightly ironic self-description of 'alternative', though deciding what this meant became a major debate. All agreed that it implied non-commercial and non-consumerist values with social/political/ethical aims and consensual democratic organizing. Concerns emerged about how difficult this was in practice, often due to lack of money or time.Despite the need for money, some argued that paid work or grants undermined autonomy and self-sufficiency. Whilst a few had full time jobs (usually in the public sector or with charities), many kept paid work to the minimum, desiring to live entirely 'off-grid'. Most wanted to engage with 'the community' to further political aims and t...

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: An Account Of a Subsequent Festival Event By Author 2 Based mentioning

confidence: 99%

Organizing for Individuation: Alternative Organizing, Politics and New Identities

Reedy

King

Coupland

2016

Organization Studies

101

184

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…The collaboration was not an open community music project such as described by Rimmer (2010). Participants were selected via Urbeatz on the basis of their perceived talent and dedication towards active involvement in Liverpool's urban music scene.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Community music and urban leisure: The Liverpool One Project

Lashua

2013

International Journal of Community Music

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This article reports on research that aimed to understand, through a collaborative music-making studio project, how young urban musicians might build a community that could transgress perceived cultural and racialized boundaries and ‘reclaim’ the city centre through their lyrics and performances. The Liverpool One Project involved sixteen weeks of studio-based activities with 23 young people (ages 18–25) to create an urban music (e.g., rap, hip hop, soul, R&B, grime and dubstep genres) digital mixtape. Drawing from participants’ lyrics and my ethnographic descriptions of studio conversations, I highlight the participants’ grasp of their sociological imaginations (Mills 1959): their ability to locate music and leisure at the intersections of biography, history and society. The sociological imagination further allows the crucial differentiation between individual ‘personal troubles’ and broader, structural ‘public issues’. The Liverpool One Project illustrated this critical ability, as participants (re)constructed and contested where they and urban music more generally ‘belong’ in Liverpool’s newly regenerated city centre.

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“…There are limits to this panacea, in part because of the predominantly middle-class backgrounds of skaters in the UK, which often provides them with the financial means to acquire boards and clothes, but creates class-based divides from other subcultural groups, notably 'chavs' (see McCulloch et al, 2006;Martin, 2009). Revealingly, Rimmer (2010), exploring the value of a music based subculture amongst young men from a Tyneside estate who the skaters would certainly define as 'chavs', identified striking similarities in the social value of the music scene as well as status gained from DJing or MCing, which echoes key elements of the skaters' subculture.…”

Section: Skaters the City And The Accidental Youth Clubmentioning

confidence: 94%

The Accidental Youth Club: Skateboarding in Newcastle-Gateshead

Jenson

Swords

Jeffries

2012

Journal of Urban Design

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Skateboarders re-invent and interrogate the physical structure of cityscapes as they use spaces, buildings and objects for skating. However, skaters are routinely regarded by the civic and business interests who dominate city centre planning and regeneration as, at best, a nuisance and at worst an unruly and dangerous blight. This paper reports findings from a research project involving skaters which begins to unpick this stereotype. A participatory methodology combining mapping, interviews and observation was used to identify spots used by skaters in Newcastle and Gateshead (North East England). The key spots were characterized using four criteria: trickability, accessibility, sociability and compatibility. Findings reveal that two further factors temporal and relational dimensions are crucial to the journeys skaters embark on. Sociability was the one constant factor defining favoured spots. The study revealed a sociable, entrepreneurial, creative skate scene. Far from being a problem the skaters add to the social capital of the cityscape. The findings suggest that rather than designing out skaters from the city the civic authorities should work with skaters to sustain their scene as a positive benefit to city regeneration. Skateboarding and the City

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Listening to the monkey: Class, youth and the formation of a musical habitus

Cited by 12 publications

References 16 publications

Organizing for Individuation: Alternative Organizing, Politics and New Identities

Organizing for Individuation: Alternative Organizing, Politics and New Identities

Community music and urban leisure: The Liverpool One Project

The Accidental Youth Club: Skateboarding in Newcastle-Gateshead

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