Music, Culture and Society: Joseph Borlagdan
6 March 2008
The Paradox of “Do-It-Yourself” in Unpopular Music: Power, Capital, and Social Relations Within a Local Music Community
Joseph Borlagdan
This paper examines the construction of ‘Do-It-Yourself’ (DIY) values in music-making. The importance of agency and participation as existing outside of the mainstream field of music is argued to be part of a process of music production, consumption and distribution that cannot be simplified according to a ‘mainstream versus alternative’ model. This dichotomy is a persistent one, but investigation into a small music making community revealed that social actors situating themselves in opposition to dominant norms will engage in complex and contradictory ways within the music field. It is more useful to talk of a continuum of music production rather than clearly bounded
categorisations. To better conceptualise how this is negotiated within the milieu of social relationships, Bourdieu’s notion of cultural capital as operating within a field of restricted cultural production will be used to explain how forms of sociality are organised around symbolic forms of music made for ‘art’s sake’. By applying this conceptual framework, struggles emerge in which music makers attempt to create their own self-determined autonomous space. Paradoxically, however, these moves towards independence are largely enabled and facilitated by the actor’s dependence on the social networks that constitute the field. The DIY ethic is therefore a misnomer of sorts that belies the inherently social and co-operative manner in which music is pursued against the grain of ‘the mainstream’.
Joseph Borlagdan joined NCETA in July 2007 as a Lecturer. He is currently working on a project exploring the cultural influences on alcohol use amongst young Australians. Prior to working with NCETA, Joseph lectured in the Sociology Department of Flinders University and the Communication School of the University of South Australia. His teaching background includes topics such as youth culture, consumerism, contemporary social problems, social identity and media studies. He has also contributed to research in the teaching and learning field. Joseph completed his PhD at Flinders University in 2005. His research examined the cultural and social context in which young people actively produce their own underground music community. Located within the field of cultural sociology his research interests include the sociology of young people, post-subcultural theory, and ethnographic research. Joseph also holds a Bachelor of Behavioural Science (Hons).