The Development of Community and Resistance Through Traditional Music Culture

by Madeleine Kelly

From the author: 

I wrote this paper as my final written work for my major in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. I decided I wanted to work on a piece exploring the uses and strengths of music and dance in social movements. I used Audre Lorde’s essay “Uses of the Erotic” to relate feminist theory to traditional music and dance and how they are utilized in protest music and cultural dance practices. I used Barabara Ehrenreich’s Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy” to provide the historical and anthropological context in which to ground my argument using Lorde’s theory. These were the two primary texts used to develop my analysis and research and they worked alongside each other seamlessly to exhibit how collective joy found in group song and dance creates an environment conducive for community building and change making.

I am very proud of this paper and everyday I am faced with the relevance of this project as political turmoil continues globally and footage is always circulating of crowds dancing, chanting, and singing together in protest. Social change work and music are two passions of mine that I have cultivated my whole life and I feel privileged to have been able to bring that into my academic career.

Read: The Development of Community and Resistance Through Traditional Music Culture (PDF)

Copyrights of all Verge articles and editorial material belong to the authors.