Beyond Brassens: Twenty-First Century Chanson and the New Generation of Singer-Songwriters

This article considers the relevance of the notion of ‘generation’ for the study of cultural shifts in the production and critical reception of singer-songwriters in contemporary France, in the period 2005–12. Defining a ‘generation’ as an age cohort sharing socio-cultural characteristics and patterns of socialisation, it focuses on Camille, Benjamin Biolay, La Grande Sophie, Barbara Carlotti and other singer-songwriters who were all born in ‘the long 1970s’, and who achieved notoriety and success in the period in question. It demonstrates that the traditional discourse of chanson, dominant since the 1950s, defined by literariness and embodied by Georges Brassens, is being replaced by an emphasis on seduction, Anglophilia and multi-instrumental sophistication. Although these features have been central to the compositions of a number of ‘older’ singer-songwriters, including Serge Gainsbourg, Françoise Hardy and Alain Souchon, the deployment by today's critics of the notion of ‘generation’ helps to give superficial coherence and symbolic originality to the younger artists who uphold these values and techniques. As a result, and because the music reviews referenced in this article are extracted from ‘high-brow’ magazines (including Télérama), this article also considers the changing place of chanson in the elite discourse of contemporary France.     

‘La rue du 19 mars 1962 c'était la rue de la liberté’: Personal and Collective Memory Spaces in Rachid Akbal's Commemoration of Peace

Rachid Akbal is a French-born Algerian playwright, director and actor whose company, ‘Le temps de vivre’, took up residence at the Théâtre de Belleville in Paris in 2012 to perform his Trilogie Algérienne (three plays with a loosely autobiographical element: Baba la France, Ma mère l'Algérie and Alger, Terminal 2). On 19 March 2012, to mark the 50th anniversary of the first day of the ceasefire between Algeria and France, Akbal held an open evening at the theatre. The first half offered a run-through of the history between France and Algeria. The second half was a more personal, lyrical narrative of what the date represented for Akbal; unpublished elsewhere, Akbal has given permission for it to be reproduced here. In its hour-long performance, the narration was accompanied by sounds (natural elements, gunfire and sirens, and music), and at the end the lights went up and Akbal took a seat on stage, to begin a half-hour discussion with the audience. In so doing, Akbal created a discreet space of remembrance which allowed interested parties to come together in collective commemoration. Setting theorisations of cultural memory in dialogue with commentaries published during the commemorative period, this article sets up a framework to interrogate the possibilities of personal and collective remembrance offered by Akbal's event, opening these up via publication of the text and analysis of it as a ‘memory space’.     

Against the ‘tyranny’ of single-family dwelling: insights from Christiania at 40

Ownership of a single-family dwelling remains the dominant aspiration in market-led economies. In a hyper-privatised landscape, it is widely assumed that people will not share housing except in extraordinary circumstances. There is nevertheless a long and rich history of countercultural groups who imagine and practise alternative forms of shared housekeeping and collaborative dwelling. This article draws on first-hand observations of daily life from the countercultural community of Christiania, in the Danish capital of Copenhagen, at a critical moment in a 40-year history of state-threatened ‘normalization’. Christiania is an intriguing lens through which to re-imagine affordable, adaptable, gender democratic housing and urban structure: it reveals how sharing, mutuality and innovation intersect at multiple scales of homemaking and community governance. These insights are relevant for provoking new thinking about dwelling and mutuality in the context of a deepening crisis in housing provision and access across Europe.     

No Way Back? Adaptation and Urbanization of IDP Livelihoods in the Darfur Region of Sudan

This article explores how people in conflict zones adapt their livelihoods after they migrate to urban areas. Drawing on case studies in two towns in the Darfur region of Sudan, the authors find that livelihood systems are in transition and have undergone fundamental changes resulting from displacement and the effects of conflict on dysfunctional and failing institutions. Urban migrants’ livelihood strategies evolve in a context of insecurity, distorted markets, lack of regulation and punitive rent‐seeking regimes such as protection payments. Maladaptive livelihood strategies emerge in response to the need for food and income in the short term. New strategies also can increase societal inequities and marginalization, and over‐exploit limited natural resources. Thus the ‘new’ livelihoods cannot be considered sustainable or equitable, or even able to provide food security in the short term. Locally appropriate and innovative approaches to support livelihoods are badly needed, but it is important to monitor and evaluate their impacts on livelihood groups, local economic recovery, environment and conflict.     

Assessing stakeholders’ perspectives towards the conservation of the built heritage of Suakin,Sudan

The conservation of built heritage is recognized as a vehicle for sustaining local identity and a powerful instrument for urban regeneration. The problem of how to engage local culture in this process, however, has received comparatively little attention, despite the recognition of ‘stakeholders’ and the importance of their involvement. This research examines how collaboration between stakeholders might be established to conserve and thus help regenerate the historic and largely abandoned port town of Suakin. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with representatives of Suakin’s stakeholder groups and supported through archival analysis and observational studies. The intention was to explore the stakeholders’ views of the ‘conservation drivers’, ‘conservation practice’, and ‘conservation challenges and enablers’ affecting Suakin. The stakeholders’ response provides a preliminary status to the various perspectives concerning the conservation of Suakin’s built heritage. The findings identify a number of major issues impacting Suakin’s conservation and reveal a potential for implementing a comprehensive and inclusive conservation approach. The research establishes the case for further research to determine best methods to enable stakeholders to collaboratively address the issues impacting Suakin’s conservation. This approach to stakeholder involvement represents a new step towards the conservation of Suakin and a new contribution towards the conservation process.     

Cunning Histories: Privileging Narratives in the Present

Examining contemporary British witchcraft necessitates representing its historical context, currently a highly contested arena. Both magical practitioners and scholars have heavily critiqued the “orthodox” histories of unbroken lines of tradition reaching back to the distant past that were prevalent in the early to mid‐twentieth century. However, continuities of knowledge and skills based on the practices of rural cunning folk and folk magic continue to be mobilized by some practitioners as a way of connecting to ideas about the past, a narrative that is also critiqued by others. What is at stake is not only the conflicting foundational histories for contemporary witchcraft, but the ways in which the same textual and material evidence is deployed to substantiate competing accounts: they hinge on the ways evidence is contextualized. Interrogating “context” is not limited to the histories we aim to represent, but is embedded within anthropological writing and knowledge.