Greek Hip Hop: Local and Translocal Authentication in the Restricted Field of Production

Abstract

This paper illustrates how hip hop practitioners in Athens, Greece legitimate hip hop asan authentic musical form within the restricted field of cultural production. First, this paperoutlines how fields of cultural production operate. Second, this paper illustrates how the data forthis project was collected. Third, this paper highlights how past and current struggles within thefield shape how authenticity is defined. Fourth, this paper highlights the discursive techniquesused by hip hop practitioners to position rap music as aesthetically superior to the commerciallysuccessful genres of new wave laika, 'hip pop,' corporate American hip hop and Greek pop. Fifth,I illustrate how hip hop practitioners use two competing processes of aesthetic legitimation: localauthentication and translocal authentication, within the restricted field of cultural production.Finally, I conclude with some suggested avenues for future research.Sent from Mail for Windows 10

Making art work: Creative assessment as boundary work

“…For cultural workers whose professional interests are aligned with artistic ideals, this means using boundary work to defend artistic logic against the market's economic logic. For example, tasting room hosts at exclusive wineries derisively call Wine Spectator, a lifestyle magazine devoted to wine, "Wine Speculator," and avoid customers looking to "buy a status symbol" (Jamerson, 2009), while Greek hip hop artists position their work as "real" and "clean" to the commercially successful genres that are "tasteless" and "too American" (Elafros, 2013). Even when employed in commercial enterprises, such workers affirm their artistic identity by designing products that can be recognized through a signature style (Elsbach, 2009) and distancing themselves from products they consider inauthentic (Wei, 2012).…”

Cultural production and the morality of markets: Popular music critics and the conversion of economic power into symbolic capital

“…Indeed, newcomers willing to create a position have to face a pre-existing structure of privileges and the field's collective history. As recently stressed by Sapiro (2010), Regev (2013) and Elafros (2013), cultural fields are situated within a broader network of national and global actors. As I shall discuss below, this space of possibles informs producers'…”

“…On a similar note, it has been argued that the rise of omnivorous consumption practices (Peterson and Kern 1996) does force cultural organisations to cross the boundaries between different publics and niche markets (Kersten and Verboord 2013). In essence, while forms of autonomy have certainly not disappeared in cultural production (Moore 2007, Elafros 2013, there is growing empirical evidence about the strong influence of heteronomous forces on cultural fields, especially on actors concerned with preserving some degree of autonomy from economic necessity.…”

“…Moreover, I will contend that such actors should be studied taking into account their position within a broader space of national and global actors (Regev 2013). These questions remain underappreciated in contemporary field studies, as they usually focus on small scale production and actors pursuing symbolic autonomy from market pressures (Hesmondhalgh 1998, Lopes 2000, Moore 2007, Heise and Tudor 2008, Prior 2008, Craig and Dubois 2010, Elafros 2013, Oware 2014. While this line of research remains important and worth pursuing, it leaves unexplored the heteronomous pole of cultural fields, and the strategies through which producers attempt to legitimise both their economic power and market imperatives at large.…”

Applying the Phenomenon of Real Estate Market Subject Translocality to Determine the Regional Development Level of Polish Voivodeships

“…Translocality is an relatively new topic, often connected with issues of traditional ethnography (APPADURAI 1996, p. 192;HANNERZ 1998, p. 239 (ELAFROS 2013;HALL, DATTA 2010;MA 2002). An interesting description was proposed by Smith (2001), according to which translocality can be understood as a network connection of socio-cultural and political processes in which migrating subjects build and create connections between towns in individual countries, maintain new political, economic and cultural courses, extending their own significance over time.…”