Failed States and Creative Resistances: The Everyday Life of Punks in Belfast, Banda Aceh, Mitrovica and Soweto

This project seeks to explore the everyday lives and creative activities of punk communities in Belfast (Northern Ireland), Banda Aceh (Indonesia), Mitrovica (Kosovo), and Soweto (South Africa). The everyday life-worlds of these 'punk hinterland' communities offer a set of critical perspectives on their 'failed state' contexts, experienced across a spectrum of neglect/restraint. The punks' own Do-It-Yourself cultural and media production practice grounds a recognition of cultural value beyond, and in opposition to, the narrow economism of entrepreneurial, industry and state discourses - this creativity shapes the resistant subjectivities of punk. The artefacts that are produced through this DIY cultural industry are part of the shared language of 'global punk', and the project's methodologies draw on this by generating inter-contextual dialogue through compilation records produced in each locale (in addition to participant observation and interviews).

This critical-regionalist, cross-comparative, qualitative and participant-centred method of analysis sets out five critical challenges:

- This project is contemporary. We are interested in 'punk-now' not a punk history or 'punk-as-history'. We choose punk that is alive, contemporary and relevant over dead, calcified punk nostalgia.

- This project challenges neo-colonial flows of culture. Analyses of punk are still too often confined to Anglo-American place-specific moments (New York '76, London '77, etc.). Our engagement with these 4 'hinterland' contexts is critically decentring and provides an appreciation of contemporary punk's vibrant global spread.

- This project questions the 'entrepreneurial rationality' that dominates analysis of the creative industries. We critique punk DIY cultural production, especially in terms of the direct challenge to state and industry norms represented in this alternative field of production.

- This project is about the experience of 'failed states'. Each of these contexts has recent history of intra-state violence, and we explore this 'post-conflict'/'failed state' framework by focusing closely on the punks' own agency and lived experience. It is the context of neglect/restraint by the 'failed state' that these punk communities experience and to which they respond. Our analysis is informed by the productive tension that emerges between 'failed state' as both a dysfunctional social formation and the lived experience of neglect/restraint.

- This project's methodologies are innovative, participatory, cross-comparative and dialogical. This approach is non-exploitative, informed as it is by the PI's insider perspective on global punk. It involves the participants in shaping the research, and invites them into dialogue with the researchers and with one another across the 4 research contexts. This dialogue is especially focussed on the compilation records as material artefacts emerging from the punks' own DIY cultural production, which operate as a 'shared language' across the global punk scene.

This research process offers the opportunity for critical transformation in the self-perception of these punk scenes and their individual participants through cross-comparative dialogue. As a key outcome of this research, the punks will come to better understand their own experience of creative resistance in a 'failed state' context by self-reflection, through the process of sharing that reflection creatively, and by engaging with the reflections of their comrades elsewhere in the world's punk hinterlands. There will also be a direct impact in terms of enhancing the punks' creative output, via the compilation records. The insights and critiques generated in this process will be disseminated via a co-authored monograph, a series of academic articles, a series of punk zines, a project website, a symposium (including display of the records), and the compilation records themselves.

This new research data on an overlooked subject area in under researched contexts will be impactful at a general level, but also has potential impact at a local, deep level in each context as a result of our engaged methodologies. The project has 4 core impact areas:

1. Addressing misconceptions around punk by presenting an insider-informed analysis of contemporary scenes. Our collaborators will be enabled to communicate with the wider world through the co-production of the compilation records; a medium to share their cultural production and critical analyses of their social contexts. These insightful avenues will be of interest to media platforms, which themselves will be enriched by communicating the experiences and cultural output of these punk 'hinterland' scenes. The musical aspect of the project lends itself to dissemination via radio and podcasts - one target is BBC Radio 6 Music, which often features interviews with academics doing research into music scenes [see Pathways to Impact]. The 4 record launch events and the final project symposium, as highly visible, publicly advertised events, will be focal points for communicating the research findings to a wide audience [see Pathways to Impact].

2. A redress to neo-colonial flows of culture by focusing on under researched, overlooked international contexts. The project establishes and nurtures international networks of solidarity across these 4 'hinterland' punk communities in ways that bypass the persisting neo-colonial channels of cultural exchange. The project 'decentres' the global punk nexus by focusing its attention on marginal contexts, and engenders direct communication and cultural flow between those places. The publication of punk zines in each context, in local languages, is key to this impact [see Pathways to Impact].

3. Critical transformation in the self-perception of these punk scenes and their individual participants, through self-reflection and cross-comparative dialogue as part of the research process. By thinking about their current practices and by learning from the experiences of punks in other contexts, these punk communities can develop critical perspectives and enhance their creative outputs. Dialogue is the key process in this potential transformation - amongst punk scenes in curating their collective identity through the compilation albums, and in the intercontextual dialogue between the scenes through the exchange of the records and the opportunity to meet in person at the final symposium [see Case for Support]. The project will also benefit the global punk scene by foregrounding the hugely significant experiences of 'hinterland' punk communities, highlighting their cultural production, raising the visibility of their scenes, and opening avenues for further exchanges beyond these 4 places. The distribution of the compilation albums is the core avenue of communication, both in analogue and digital formats, and their distribution and reception will be traced [see Pathways to Impact]. Alternative media outlets are an important avenue of communication within the global punk scene - there are numerous zines and podcasts around the world, but prominent targets will include MaximumRocknRoll Radio [see Pathways to Impact].

4. Lessons for the creative industries, and creative communities more widely, in understanding their own experiences of resistance, especially in, but not limited to, 'failed state' contexts. This project challenges the 'cheery noise' around the creative industries by presenting a critical counter-narrative [see Case for Support]. Other third sector creative and arts organisations will benefit from the sharing of experiences of groups who operate at the margins of the creative industries - this perspective sheds critical light and points to innovative practices which may enhance the resilience of the creative industries as a whole.