Cultural identity, community, and collective memory in post-industrial South Wales: Investigating the role of shared musical experiences

这个项目将研究共享的音乐体验是否以及如何影响后工业时代南威尔士的文化认同、社区和集体记忆。尽管人们对流行音乐遗产及其与文化身份的关系越来越感兴趣（Cohen et al. 2015），但音乐学文献却忽视了南威尔士城镇居民的日常音乐生活。这种遗漏意味着这一群体的文化音乐身份没有得到充分的代表。因此，对于如何进一步吸引这一人口群体参与艺术和威尔士文化遗产，几乎没有提供什么见解。这个项目旨在纠正这种不平衡。汇集流行音乐研究，社区研究和文化社会学的最新趋势，这项跨学科研究将有助于流行音乐遗产的新兴领域，并为威尔士身份的文化研究提供新的视角。通过强调弱势群体的声音和生活经历，该项目旨在重新评估全球化世界中地区的过去和未来，并考虑构成“成为威尔士人”的许多不同经历。与权力下放后对威尔士公民身份的坚持（Brooks 2009）相反，研究表明，威尔士继续被“等级国家”划分——一些地区被认为比其他地区更“威尔士”（Evans 2019）。尽管威尔士身份被认为具有强烈的地方归属感和对地方的依恋（Day 2010），但这种“威尔士性”的本质是有争议的，可以根据地点、地区和地方的生活经验进行不同的构建。音乐可以在人们定义他们与当地日常环境的关系方面发挥重要作用（Whitelely et al. 2004），作为“社区、归属感和共同过去的标志”（Lewis 1992,144）。尽管目前音乐学者关注文化认同和遗产（Cohen et al. 2015, Brandellero et al. 2014），但对威尔士音乐的研究要么集中在卡迪夫等城市的城市“场景”（Coates 2012），要么集中在“传统”音乐制作和威尔士语流行音乐（Jones 2015; Hill 2007），强化了一些地方或地区比其他地方或地区更“民族”的流行话语（Edensor 2002）。本项目将以特定的空间和文化为焦点，探索当地音乐体验在身份建构中的作用：讲英语的后工业南威尔士社区，即Balsom（1985）所称的“威尔士威尔士”。虽然“威尔士威尔士”一直是许多社会科学研究的焦点，但它明显被排除在音乐研究之外，而且对这一人口统计的日常音乐生活的民族志研究是不够的。本项目将探索的其中一个活动是波斯考尔猫王节。这个节日是世界上最大的以猫王为主题的活动，每年在后工业时代的海滨小镇波斯考尔举行，比孟菲斯猫王周吸引了更多的游客，2018年有3.5万人参加（BBC 2018）。尽管如此，它被组织者描述为“非常威尔士的活动”，特别得到了山谷地区的大力支持（BBC 2018）——一种“工人阶级的爱斯泰德食品”（Minhinnick 2012）。地点是这个“威尔士”活动身份的核心；波斯考尔以其“矿工的两周”而闻名，对20世纪南威尔士工人阶级的休闲活动至关重要（Pincombe 2011）。因此，这个节日被束缚在怀旧的话语中，这些话语被特别地放置在集体记忆中，提出了关于音乐、威尔士和地方之间关系的复杂问题。

This project will examine if and how shared musical experiences affect ideas of cultural identity, community, and collective memory in post-industrial South Wales. Despite burgeoning interest in popular music heritage and its relationship withcultural identity (Cohen et al. 2015), the everyday musical lives of people in the towns of South Wales have been overlooked in musicological literature. This omission means that the cultural-musical identities of this population areunderrepresented. As such, little insight has been provided on how to engage further this demographic's participation with the arts and Welsh cultural heritage. This project aims to redress this imbalance. Drawing together recent trends in popular music studies, community studies and cultural sociology, this interdisciplinary research will contribute to the emerging field of popular music heritage and offer a new perspective to cultural studies of Welsh identity. In emphasising the voices and lived experiences of an underrepresented demographic, this project aims to re-evaluate regional pasts and futures in a globalised world and considers the many diverse experiences that constitute "being Welsh."In contrast to post-devolution insistence on a civic Welsh identity (Brooks 2009), research suggests Wales continues to be divided by "hierarchical nationhood"-thatsome regions are perceived to be more "Welsh" than others (Evans 2019). Although Welsh identity is regarded as having a strong sense of local belonging and attachment to place (Day 2010), the nature of this "Welshness" is contested and can be constructed differently depending on locality, region, and a lived experience of place.Music can play an important role in the way people define their relationship to local, everyday surroundings (Whitelely et al. 2004), as "signs of community, belonging and a shared past" (Lewis 1992, 144). Despite the current attentiveness of music scholars to cultural identity and heritage (Cohen et al. 2015, Brandellero et al. 2014), studies of Welsh music have either focused on the urban "scenes" of cities such as Cardiff (Coates 2012), or on "traditional" music-making and Welsh-language pop (Jones 2015; Hill 2007), reinforcing the popular discourse that some places or regions are more "national" than others (Edensor 2002). This project will explore the rolelocal music experiences play in identity construction with a specific spatial and cultural focus: the English-speaking, post-industrial South Wales communities, what Balsom (1985) terms "Welsh Wales." Whilst "Welsh Wales" has been the focus of much social science research, it is noticeably excluded from music studies, and ethnographic research on the everyday musical lives of this demographic is insufficient.One such event this project will explore is the Porthcawl Elvis Festival. The festival, the largest Elvis- themed event in the world, takes place annually in the post- industrial seaside town of Porthcawl and attracts more visitors than Memphis Elvis Week, with 35,000 attending in 2018 (BBC 2018). Despite this, it is described by its organiser as a "very Welsh event" that is particularly well-supported by the Valleys (BBC 2018)-a "working-class Eisteddfod" (Minhinnick 2012). Place lies at the core of this "Welsh" event's identity; Porthcawl was renowned for its "miners' fortnight" and was vital to the leisure activities of the South Wales working classes in thetwentieth century (Pincombe 2011). As such, the festival is bound in discourses of nostalgia which are specifically placed within collective memory, raising complex questions about the relationship between music, Welshness and place.