Abstract
This project explores the organizing practices of an emergent network of US activist street bands, many of which are leaderless, anarchistic, or collectivist. As a community, they have been called, “probably the most vibrant incarnation of the protest music tradition in America today”. While they often play at protests, their social agendas are also distinguished by their participatory, anti-hierarchical, and inclusion-oriented practices of self-governance. Bands are as much social experiments are they are musical ones – in addition to being leaderless, some accept musicians of all skill levels; some are organized around particular musical genres; some have more than thirty musicians and others only four. They are comprised of people who are both musicians and activists, exploring a kind of direct democracy through music. However, even within this growing community—self-defined as radically inclusive—is a parallel trend: a still-newer network of women-centered bands, often inclusive of nonbinary people but not of men, emerging from musicians’ frustration with gender dynamics in larger groups, and gendered norms within music. Data shows that women find their femme bands to be transformative spaces of experimentation, and their all-gender bands fun but, in the words of one respondent, “mansplainy”. The emergence of femme bands begs the question of how existing power structures are challenged or reaffirmed in non-hierarchical, non-expert spaces. In other words: if street bands are so inclusive, why are femme bands appearing all? How is power gendered in these environments, and how is that consequential for music, and political and civic life overall?
Presenters
Meghan KallmanAssociate Professor, School for Global Inclusion and Social Development, UMass Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
The Arts in Social, Political, and Community Life
KEYWORDS
Gender, Democracy, Music, Activism, Street Bands
