Sustaining popular music’s material culture in community archives and museums

This article examines the challenges of sustainability faced by community archives and museums that are concerned with the preservation and display of the material culture of popular music’s recent past. The sustainability of grassroots sites of popular music heritage is of great concern due to their role in making accessible cultural artefacts that have limited representation in the collections of more prestigious institutions. Drawing on three sites that have ceased operation – Jazz Museum Bix Eiben Hamburg, Mutant Sounds and Holy Warbles – the article highlights difficulties faced by the founders and volunteers of physical and online archives in sustaining their ‘do-it-yourself’ heritage practices in the medium- to long-term.     

Musical memory,heritage and local identity: remembering the popular music past in a European Capital of Culture

This paper explores the relationship between rock music, collective memory and local identity, by focusing on events connected to Liverpool's status as European Capital of Culture 2008. The first part of the paper describes these events and how memories of local rock music were attached to heritage and local identity and mobilised to validate Liverpool as a capital of culture, whilst in turn the city's Capital of Culture status served to validate particular ways of remembering the local musical past. The second part of the paper considers the broader significance of these events by relating them to three pan-European trends in cultural policy: the development of the cultural and heritage industries; the protection and promotion of local culture and identity; and the fostering of cultural diversity and integration. It highlights the general significance of the popular music past for cultural policy in Europe, but also the politics of popular music memory and how it involves a complex and dynamic process of negotiation that relates to cultural policy in particular ways. The paper concludes by arguing that popular music offers a specific and productive focus for research on cultural policy, heritage and local identity in Europe.     

Transcendent myths,mundane objects: setting the material scene in rock,soul, and country museums

The many varied myths of origins, aesthetic transcendence, and greatness that surround popular music continue to proliferate in a variety of forms. One comparatively recent type of institution producing such forms of mythology is the popular music museum. This article uses the familiar idea of the ‘experience economy’’ to examine how three popular music museums produce experiences through objects that, while they are deliberately cast as mundane and everyday, work to support widely-shared narratives of the musical traditions of which they are a part. I argue that they do so in the service of larger myths of popular music. In each case I examine, I show that the myths on display are specific to the music that forms that content of the exhibitions. I argue that the specific kinds of spectator experiences these museums seek to produce are designed to enhance the value of these museums and their collections through claims made on specific types of musical patrimony made material through carefully contextualized objects of display. As such, traditionalist myths of musical greatness and aesthetic transcendence are well-served by the forms of exhibition and display produced by these institutions.     

From Coombs to Crean: popular music and cultural policy in Australia

The many bodies administering Australian arts activity were incorporated within the Australia Council, established in 1973 by the Whitlam Labor Government to oversee Commonwealth arts policy under the direction of H.C. ‘Nugget’ Coombs. This article takes the establishment of the Australia Council as a starting point in tracing changing attitudes towards the practices and funding of popular music in Australia and accompanying policy discourses. This includes consideration of how funding models reinforce understandings of ‘high’ and ‘low’ art forms, the ‘cultural’/‘creative’ industries debates, and their effects upon local popular music policy. This article discusses the history of local music content debates as a central instrument of popular music policy and examines the implications for cultural nationalism in light of a recent series of media and cultural reports into industries and funding bodies. In documenting a broad shift from cultural to industrial policy narratives, the article examines a central question: What does the ‘national’ now mean in contemporary music and the rapid evolution of digital media technologies?     

The sound of music heritage: curating popular music in music museums and exhibitions

A significant amount of previous academic research into popular music museums centres on critiques of the content, design and layout of predominantly authorised institutions. Throughout much of this research, authors consistently criticise the use, or rather, the perceived misuse, of music played within music museums, arguing that the music itself, rather than artefacts, constitutes the most significant part of popular music exhibition. This article seeks to counter this trend by exploring the challenges of incorporating recorded sound into popular music exhibits as understood by curators and exhibit designers. Utilising interviews conducted within 14 authorised and DIY museums devoted to popular music, the researchers demonstrate a distinct contrast between current academic critiques of music use in these museums and the attitudes of the people who create them. The result is a varied discussion surrounding sound in the museal space, including issues of sound bleed, technology and the creation of balance between artefacts and sound. This account draws attention to curators’ intentions of telling the story of popular music history by engaging with both the visual and aural memories of museum patrons, and suggests a new understanding of the purpose underpinning popular music museums in modern contexts.     

The sound of yesteryear on display: a rethinking of nostalgia as a strategy for exhibiting pop/rock heritage

The increasing presentation of popular music culture as heritage is manifested in the recent proliferation of museums of pop/rock culture. This calls for an examination of the current practices of disseminating pop/rock heritage through exhibitions. Two trends have been identified and criticised by previous commentators: first, the prominence of nostalgia in exhibition narratives and second, that exhibitions of popular music tend to display ancillary objects rather than music itself. This article offers a rethinking of nostalgia as a strategy for disseminating pop/rock heritage and explores the potential of music as a trigger for nostalgic experiences in exhibitions. While agreeing with much of the critique levelled at the nostalgic approach to pop/rock culture, we suggest that with a more nuanced conception of reflective nostalgia, the affective appeal of the nostalgic approach can be harnessed without giving in to glamourised oversimplifications of the past. Further, we suggest that mediated memories can form the basis of nostalgic feelings and thus enable the nostalgic approach to span the generational gap and engage visitors who do not have a lived experience of pop/rock heritage. We will illustrate this by contrasting our approach to that taken at ABBA The Museum.     

Pioneer Living 1963 Style: Imaginations of Heritage in a Post‐war Canadian Suburb

This article connects the origins of a Canadian living history museum to the cultural and social developments of 1960s suburban Canada. Although there exists a strong literature on heritage and commemoration in Canada (and around the world), few scholars have looked explicitly at museums in that country. The literature on history museums elsewhere in the world is stronger. However, despite the strengths of this international literature, its focus has been on the use of museums in the present. An important aspect of the use of heritage, the historical contexts in which past museum visitors interpreted museum themes and displays, has not received much attention. This article argues that museum patrons of the 1960s, the decade in which many living history museums were founded, saw pioneer villages in the context of their own modernising lifestyles. However much Black Creek Pioneer Village might reflect anxiety about the direction of modernity, it also framed the past in ways that legitimated modern, suburban living.     

Networked practices of intangible urban heritage: the changing public role of Dutch heritage professionals

This study examines the changing roles of heritage professionals by focusing on the participatory practices of intangible urban heritage. Developments towards democratisation in the heritage sector led to a growing expectation that heritage professionals would work with local publics. This democratisation is manifested in (1) the use of digital media for grassroots heritage practices, (2) the broader scope of what is defined as heritage, and (3) a focus on communities in UNESCO’s Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. Heritage professionals are thus challenged to develop inclusive heritage practices, particularly in cities, which are characterised by a dynamic nature and cultural diversity. In this article, I analyse how urban heritage organisations and professionals have responded to these developments. Drawing on interviews and a qualitative content analysis of these organisations’ policy documents, I examine the ways in which heritage professionals reconsider their public role through what I define as networked practices of intangible heritage. This concept captures the networked structure in which heritage professionals increasingly work, and also demonstrates how heritage is given meaning through public practices that take place in both the physical and virtual realms of contemporary cities.     

Looking With Both Eyes

Private metal detecting is frequently suggested as a favourable recipe for saving objects that would otherwise perish in agricultural fields in Norway. Metal detector communities portray themselves as heritage rescuers. For this they receive considerable praise from sympathetic archaeologists and museum staff. By contrast, finders who keep objects for themselves are portrayed as so-called nighthawks. However, accounts from informants who collect, trade or search for archaeological objects reflect more ambivalent attitudes than the idealized image of heritage rescuers and the hostile image of nighthawks indicate. In this article, the issue of private metal detecting is approached through recorded interviews, official correspondence in public archives and informal accounts in online forums.

Norwegian cultural heritage law forms a background to the analysis, while certain legal concepts are employed more actively. The relation between museums and detectorists is deconstructed and explored through the legal provisions on receiving and laundering the proceeds of criminal acts in Norway’s General Civil Penal Code. It is argued here that, while it might seem practical from the point-of-view of museums to assume that finds that are handed in according to law also have been legally procured, such acceptance might also be understood as unlawful legitimation.     

The problem with looting: An alternative perspective on antiquities trafficking in Southeast Asia

The 1950s and 1960s constitute a key “moment” in the history of the looting of archaeological sites in Southeast Asia. The emergence in the region at that time of a commodity market for antiquities such as pottery triggered a wave of illicit excavation of archaeological sites. Simultaneous with the trafficking of antiquities out of the Philippines and Thailand into the hands of private collectors and museums in the West during this period and subsequent decades a thriving domestic antiquities market developed. It is argued here that the valorization of antiquities as national heritage, rather than inhibiting acquisition by citizen collectors, facilitated a process wherein collecting became a form of cultural capital accumulation. It is inaccurate to categorize Thailand and the Philippines simply as “source” or “supply” nodes in the global antiquities trade. This paper aims for a more nuanced approach to the geoeconomics of antiquities consumption.     

Transformations of cultural heritage in Melanesia: from kastam to kalsa

In this article, I look at the reverberations of the global discourse about heritage at the margins of the global system in the Pacific. To this end, I analyse the development of indigenous concepts of cultural heritage on Baluan Island, in Manus Province, Papua New Guinea. I discuss how over the past 50?years two different heritage concepts have developed on the island, which have been used to reflect upon and direct cultural and social change. Further I show how the genesis and transformation of this local discourse about heritage is driven by local concerns and politics, as well as national and international developments.     

Authentic Kyrgyzstan: top down politics meet bottom up heritage

Abstract

Over the past twelve years I have collaborated with Kyrgyz citizens to promote a national conversation about heritage, based on grass roots interest and sentiment. Countering polarising political rhetoric about Kyrgyz nomadism as the only authentic national heritage identity, many citizens enthusiastically present the artefacts of ancient cities alongside the balbals (stele) of ancient nomads in their community museums, eagerly participate in discussions about a complex Kyrgyz past, and have collaborated with Uzbek speakers to create a national heritage society. In this paper I will describe several community museums and other grass roots education programmes that I have been involved with in Kyrgyzstan and consider their potential for countering ethnic conflict.     

Digital heritage in a Melanesian context: authenticity,integrity and ancestrality from the other side of the digital divide

This article examines how digital heritage, in the form of 3D digital objects, fits into particular discourses around identity, ancestrality and cultural transmission in Melanesia. Through an ethnographic analysis of digital heritage use amongst the Nalik community in New Ireland (Papua New Guinea), it demonstrates how digital heritage is understood not in terms of deceit and a loss of authenticity, but instead, towards an understanding of authenticity in terms of completeness and integrity. A notion of completeness and integrity, I argue, has the effect of creating an authentic experience of the past for Nalik communities by bringing back museum objects (‘old’ objects) that have been dispersed amongst museums and heritage institutions worldwide. In tracing out the operations and effects of how a Melanesian community engages with 3D digital objects, this article offers unique ethnographic insights into digital heritage in ways that challenge widely-held assumptions about the heightened value placed on the original object over its digital counterpart.     

Cultural policies for national music in South and North Korea (1960s–70s): a comparative study

ABSTRACT

This article is a comparative study of the cultural policies of North Korea (DPRK) and South Korea (ROK) in the 1960s and 1970s, specifically concerning the disciple of music. In this period, both South and North Korean regimes demonstrated similar conceptualisations of ‘national music’, harmonising Korean traditional music with western musical styles, but the end result differed in the two regimes. The DPRK developed national music through a homogenised musical style by assimilating Korean folk music with a western musical style while excluding traditional court music, with drastic modifications to traditional instruments and musical forms. In contrast, the ROK’s policy on establishing national music resulted in a combination of traditional court music for the ruling class and western classical music, indicating elitism. Particularly, this article argues that these distinct features of their national music were the result of differences in the strength and interest of government officials between the regimes.     

Politics of tangibility,intangibility, and place in the making of a European cultural heritage in EU heritage policy

The EU has recently launched several initiatives that aim to foster the idea of a common European cultural heritage. The notion of a European cultural heritage in EU policy discourse is extremely abstract, referring to various ideas and values detached from physical locations or places. Nevertheless the EU initiatives put the abstract policy discourse into practice and concretize its notions about a European cultural heritage. A common strategy in this practice is ‘placing heritage’ – affixing the idea of a European cultural heritage to certain places in order to turn them into specific European heritage sites. The materialisation of a European cultural heritage and the production of physical European heritage sites are crucial elements in the policy through which the EU seeks to govern both the actors and the meanings of heritage. On the basis of a qualitative content analysis of diverse policy documents and informational and promotional material, this article presents five strategies of ‘placing heritage’ used in the EU initiatives. In addition, the article presents a theoretical model of circulation of the tangible and intangible dimensions of heritage in the EU heritage policy discourse and discusses the EU’s political intents included in the practices of ‘placing heritage’.     

A cultural justice approach to popular music heritage in deindustrialising cities

ABSTRACT

Deindustrialisation contributes to significant transformations for local communities, including rising unemployment, poverty and urban decay. Following the ‘creative city’ phenomenon in cultural policy, deindustrialising cities across the globe have increasingly turned to arts, culture and heritage as strategies for economic diversification and urban renewal. This article considers the potential role that popular music heritage might play in revitalising cities grappling with industrial decline. Specifically, we outline how a ‘cultural justice approach’ can be used within critical heritage studies to assess the benefits and drawbacks of such heritage initiatives. Reflecting on examples from three deindustrialising cities – Wollongong, Australia; Detroit, USA; and Birmingham, UK – we analyse how popular music heritage can produce cultural justice outcomes in three key ways: practices of collection, preservation and archiving; curation, storytelling and heritage interpretation; and mobilising communities for collective action.     

Debating the reconciliatory use of heritage. European post-monumentalism versus regional national-monumentalism

In the 1990s, numerous religious monuments were destroyed in former Yugoslavia. National heritage formed one of the main targets of ethnic cleansing, literally removing the symbolic markers of ethnic groups. Responding to this destructive use of heritage, the Council of Europe and the European Commission introduced the Regional Programme on Cultural and Natural Heritage in south-east Europe. By means of this programme, they seek to change local perceptions on heritage and instigate debates about uses of the past. The premise is that only by learning from past conflicts will the region be able to continue its path to EU integration. However, progress of the programme is slow. Discussions about the interpretation of the past, let alone of a shared past, are largely avoided. The reconciliatory function of heritage that the two European actors aspire to is still hard to find. By taking Serbia as a case study, this article presents some of the typical difficulties that one can expect to encounter when heritage is used as an instrument for reconciliation in an area where reconciliation is still seen as a challenging and threatening process.     

Narratives of World Heritage in Travel Guidebooks

World Heritage Sites are among the most popular tourist destinations in the world and are, by UNESCO definition, exceptional heritage places. New visions of World Heritage encourage ideas of intercultural exchange and dialogues in the creation of these places. Thus it might be expected that cultural World Heritage Sites would be presented in ways that signal their ‘universal’ status. The article examines the portrayal of these sites in travel guidebooks, which are an acknowledged source of important influence on travellers. A study of travel guidebooks for various European nations showed that surprisingly few places are labelled as World Heritage even in the most comprehensive books. There is a gap between the ideals and what happens on the ground. While practical problems and lack of awareness may be one explanation for this, the inherent difficulties of conceiving and presenting narratives of world heritage as opposed to national, regional or local heritage may be more significant.     

Composing Connections between Continents: Tracing the History of Australia’s Engagement with Antarctica through Music

This article explores the history of Australia’s engagement with Antarctica through music, from the earliest songs and an opera created by the first Australian explorers to Antarctica, to the popular Antarctic-related classical music of Australian composer Nigel Westlake and the soundscape-based compositions of Australia-based sound artists Philip Samartzis and Lawrence English. Drawing on the field of musicology, but also the scholarly turn to the senses as part of the broadening reach of cultural history, the article argues that Australia’s musical engagement with Antarctica constitutes a significant, though understudied, aspect of our aural heritage. Further, deeper and critical appreciation of this music as cultural and aural heritage enhances our ability to reflect on the full extent of Australia’s relationship with, and contribution to knowledge about, its ‘Great Frozen Neighbour’ and its identity as a ‘gateway’ to the Antarctic region.