Liminal Politics: Nation, Gender, and Leisure in the "alternative" Palestinian Music Scene

“我不管你来自哪里；47Soul乐队在2015年的单曲《Don’t Care you From》中唱道。由四名巴勒斯坦男子组成，他们强调在形成个人和集体身份认同时，重要的是外表，而不是地点。他们的歌词描绘了超越国家的主体性，激发了巴勒斯坦年轻人中激增的音乐场景。这个自称“另类”的社区遍布黎凡特，有时在国际上展示，它打破了严格的分类。那些与它联网的人将当地的阿拉伯曲目与全球电子、雷鬼和嘻哈节奏融合在一起，产生了一种“新”流派。然而，对巴勒斯坦流行音乐的研究通常通过两个框架来呈现巴勒斯坦音乐：作为民俗认同，或作为民族抵抗。尽管音乐家制作了许多不同类型的音乐（例如glitch， techno, trip-hop, reggae, psy-trance, shamstep, electro-dabke），但这些文献关注的是嘻哈文化。在这些作品中，说唱被呈现为年轻人用来抵抗以色列占领和/或建立民族认同的工具。我的研究对批评这些紧身衣的巴勒斯坦流行音乐提供了不同的解释。它超越了巴勒斯坦艺术的主要表现形式，考虑到音乐何时可能不涉及国家抗议或抵抗身份。​这本书以当代为中心，对100位年轻音乐家、dj和他们的粉丝进行了采访，并在他们经常光顾的音乐会、派对和酒吧中进行了200次参与者观察。它探讨了年轻人如何以及以何种方式通过音乐来谈判“日常”的社会和政治权力结构。我的发现表明，音乐在不同的背景下看起来是不同的。在当地，许多年轻人都受够了。1993年奥斯陆和平进程没有带来和平，对国家领导的信任处于历史最低水平。许多年轻人用音乐来表达他们对政治精英掏空巴勒斯坦民族解放运动的不满。他们没有利用他们的工作来传达民族主义情绪，而是利用它来拒绝自上而下的民族主义。然而，尽管政治内容是前景，但它并不是年轻人关心的唯一问题。许多人不愿意让别人欣赏他们的音乐仅仅因为它是巴勒斯坦的——而不是因为它听起来很好——他们强调他们是“碰巧”是巴勒斯坦的音乐家，而不是巴勒斯坦的音乐家。他们声称，音乐是乐趣的源泉；他们用它来蔑视各种性别秩序（例如举办音乐派对，在那里喝酒、吸毒、调情和跳舞）。分析巴勒斯坦人在非本地空间的表演，可以看到一幅不同的画面。当音乐家们在伦敦演出时，他们会以特定的方式“打上烙印”。他们的自我表现，或者他们的国际东道主在他们身上传播的表现，使他们的身份与当地保持距离。这以两种方式发生：“世界”音乐活动将音乐家呈现为“异国他乡”，或者团结网络将他们限制在国家框架内。这指出了“种族”话语、资本主义和被贴上“政治”/“世界”标签的音乐在传播过程中的联系。该项目提出了两个论点。首先，现场成员通过音乐表现出超越主流规范的非传统身份。其次，地缘政治力量经常影响巴勒斯坦音乐的传播方式。批判性地定位文化生产在跨国背景下，告知，并被告知，这种审美实践，本研究将巴勒斯坦音乐置于狭隘的国家视角之外，而是询问它的流通揭示了跨地方的权力结构。

"I don't care where you're from; where you at?" sing 47Soul on their 2015 single "Don't Care Where You From". Comprised of four Palestinian men, their words stress outlook - rather than location - is what matters when forming personal and collective identities. Mapping subjectivities beyond the nation, their lyrics galvanise a music scene proliferating among Palestinian youth. Spread across the Levant, and sometimes showcased internationally, this self-titled "alternative" community defies rigid categorisation. Those networked to it fuse local Arabic repertoires, with global electronic, reggae, and hip-hop beats, to produce a 'new' genre. Research on Palestinian popular music, however, normally presents Palestinian music through two frames: as folkloric identity, or as national resistance. This literature focuses on hip-hop cultures, despite the fact that musicians make many different types of music (e.g. glitch, techno, trip-hop, reggae, psy-trance, shamstep, electro-dabke). In these works, rap is presented as a tool youth use to resist Israeli occupation, and/or build national identities. My research offers a different interpretation of Palestinian popular music that critiques these straightjackets. Moving beyond dominant representations of Palestinian art, it considers when music may not be about national protest, or resistance identities. The research stems from two years qualitative fieldwork (2012, 2014, 2017-2018) in four different cities with large Palestinian communities: Jerusalem (oPt), Ramallah (oPt), Amman (the Jordanian capital and home to many Palestinian refugees), and Haifa (a Palestinian-majority town in modern-day Israel). Focused on the contemporary moment, it draws on 100 interviews with young musicians, DJs, and their fans, and 200 participant observations at the concerts, parties, and bars they frequent. It explores how and in what way youth negotiate 'everyday' social and political power structures through music.My findings show that the music looks different in distinct contexts. Locally, many young adults are fed up. The 1993 Oslo Peace Process has not delivered peace, and trust in the national leadership is at an all-time low. Many youth use music to express frustration with what they perceive to be the political elite's hollowing out of the Palestinian national movement for liberation. Instead of using their work to convey nationalist sentiments, they deploy it to reject top-down nationalisms. However, while political content is foreground, it is not the only issue youth are concerned with. Reluctant to have their music appreciated only because it is Palestinian - rather than because it sounds good - many emphasise that they are musicians who "happen to be" Palestinian, rather than Palestinian musicians. Music, they claim, is a source of fun; they use it to flout various gendered orders (e.g. holding music parties where alcohol, drugs, flirting, and dancing takes place).Analysing Palestinian performances in non-local spaces reveals a different picture. When musicians perform in London, they are "branded" in particular ways. Their self-representations, or the representations their international hosts circulate of them, privilege identities distanced from locally. This happens in two ways: 'world' music events present musicians as 'exotic others', or solidarity networks confine them to national frameworks. This points to links in 'race' discourse, capitalism, and music labelled 'political'/'world' as it travels.The project makes two arguments. First, scene members perform unconventional identities beyond dominant norms through music. Second, geopolitical power often shapes how Palestinian music travels. Critically positioning cultural production in the transnational contexts that inform, and are informed by, such aesthetic practices, this study situates Palestinian music beyond narrow national perspectives, to ask instead what its circulation reveals about translocal power structures.