Music, culture and social movements: song and southern textile worker mobilization, 1929‐1934

Abstract

Highlights the importance of music in ritual and culture generally, extending the focus to collective action. Argues that music and its emotional and cognitive impacts can be fundamental to the construction of social movement culture. Analyses song lyrics from the southern textile strikes of 1929‐1934 in an attempt to show how music and song helped construct a collective identity across relatively dispersed mill villages, shifted accountability for mill workers problems towards the labour process and its beneficiaries and suggested to the listener a collective solution. Discusses the implications of the findings for understanding music, culture and their relation to subordinate group challenge.

Understanding Music in Movements: The White Power Music Scene

“…For example, Denisoff's (1972) work on folk music and U.S. left‐wing movements highlights the use of rhetorical songs to articulate grievances and draw in activists 1 . Similarly, Roscigno, Danaher, and Summers‐Effler (2002) discuss the cognitive impact of music on the collective identities of early 20th century southern textile workers (see also McLaurin and Peterson 1992). They explain how workers used music and song to construct a collective identity by recasting the responsibility for labor problems onto company owners, signaling that exploitation was a shared experience, and urging collective organization and protest.…”

“…Many social movement cultures organize ritualistic occasions around music. According to Sardiello (1994:116 as quoted in Roscigno et al. 2002), it is in ritual contexts that “music is meaningfully interpreted by social actors in a way that helps to define or reaffirm their social worlds.” Lyrics may have little to do with this interpretation.…”

Appréhender le travail des ouvrières par le chant

“…Il résume la fonction de cohésion du chant et du maintien de la solidarité dans une période où l'euphorie et l'espoir alternent avec la désillusion et l'abandon. Cet usage d'une expression collective est récurrent dans les chants de lutte et avait déjà été démontré pour les conflits du travail dans le sud des États-Unis dans les années 1930 (Roscigno, Danaher et Summers-Effler, 2002). Outre l'affirmation de l'unité entre les ouvrières, ces mots contribuaient à former une identité propre à la lutte menée.…”

Music and Social Movements

“…Futrell et al (2006) find that music scenes provide a place for formation of emotional attachments and collective meanings. Roscigno et al (2002) look at the role of emotions among depression-era southern textile workers. Musicians gathered in mill villages where hillbilly music was blossoming.…”