Global Punk

Global Punk and Media

Matt Grimes, Russ Bestley, Mike Dines, Paula Guerra, Matt Grimes, Russ Bestley, Mike Dines, Paula Guerra, Russ Bestley, Mike Dines, Paula Guerra

• Publisher: Intellect Books
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781789384147
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

Punk Identities, Punk Utopias: Global Punk and Media seeks to unpack and illuminate punk as a trajectory of 'timelesness…as a set of diverse but confluent values and appropriations' that have both reflected and informed an increasingly complex, indefinable social, political and economic setting. Whereas the first two volumes in the series were broadly focused on local punk 'scenes' in a disparate range of countries and regions around the world, Punk Identities, Punk Utopias extends that critical enquiry to reflect broader social, political and technological concerns impacting punk scenes around the world, from digital technology and new media to gender, ethnicity, identity and representation. This new volume therefore draws upon the interdisciplinary areas of cultural studies, musicology and social sciences to present an edited text on the notion of identities, ideologies and cultural discourse surrounding contemporary global punk scenes. It is hoped that the books in the Global Punk series will add to the academic discussion of contemporary popular culture, particularly in relation to punk and the critical understanding of transnational and cross-cultural dialogue.

Punk is a global phenomenon and the Global Punk series aims to reflect contemporary scenes around the world since the millennium. Punk and its subsequent variants, from hardcore to post-punk, have always crossed borders and become assimilated within countercultural practices with local, national and regional variations.

Produced in collaboration between the Punk Scholars Network and Intellect Books, the Global Punk book series focuses on the development of contemporary global punk ( c. 2000 onwards), reflecting upon its origins, aesthetics, identity, legacy, membership and circulation. Critical approaches draw upon the interdisciplinary areas of (among others) cultural studies, art and design, sociology, musicology and social sciences in order to develop a broad and inclusive picture of punk and punk-inspired subcultural developments around the globe. The series adopts an essentially analytical perspective, raising questions about the dissemination of punk scenes and subcultures and their form, structure and contemporary cultural significance in the daily lives of an increasing number of people around the world.

This book has a genuine crossover appealed. It will be a key resource for established academics, postdoctoral researchers and Ph.D. students, as well as being suitable for adoption as an undergraduate student textbook. Suitable courses will include those in the fields of popular music, youth culture, sociology, urban/cultural geography, political history, heritage studies, media and cultural studies.

1

FROM BELFAST WITH LOVE: THE WOMEN AND FEMALE PRESENTING PUNKS OF NORTHERN IRELAND AND THEIR ‘SUBCULTURE’

FRANCIS STEWART

Figure 1.1: Cupar Way, Belfast. Photograph by H. Bennett.

Figure 1.2: Peace Walls, Belfast. Photograph by F. Stewart.

FROM BELFAST WITH LOVE:¹ THE WOMEN AND FEMALE PRESENTING PUNKS OF NORTHERN IRELAND AND THEIR ‘SUBCULTURE’

FRANCIS STEWART

Northern Ireland, ‘Norn Iron’² or ‘our wee country’³ is emerging, slowly, from a bloody, prolonged civil war that has cast a very long shadow over a country less than a hundred years old at the time of writing. Within the arena of popular culture, in particular sport and music, there has been found an appetite for unity and a capacity for shared spaces and experiences between the traditionally divided sides. For example, when Northern Ireland qualified for the Euros 2016, a football/soccer tournament, there was fear amongst the French police that fans would fight and riot with each other rather than just support their country. Those fears were unfounded; the Northern Irish fans did not fight with each other, but instead they sang, drank, sang some more and danced together in the streets. Following their eventual defeat, and the conclusion of the tournament, the mayor of Paris, Anne Hildago, thanked the Northern Irish fans for the ‘exemplary behaviour, sportsmanship and singing’ before awarding them with the Medal for the City (BBC 2020).

This expectation of the French police and the response of the Northern Irish fans speak to two important elements within this chapter. First, Northern Ireland has come to be defined by its civil war, by the violence, terror and bloodshed to which its citizens were both subjected and contributed. Twenty years after the emergence of a peace process and we are still seen on the world stage as troubled and troubling, volatile and potentially violent. Second, throughout its history, music, singing and dancing have been key components of Northern Irish identity, and during the worst decades of the civil war, it was punk that united some people in a way that, then, was thought impossible.

Ah yeah (laughs) the p-stops,⁴ their faces when we used to reveal the places we lived. We’d crossed the divides; we didn’t care so it was such a geg⁵ that they did.

(Deborah 2011)

The community that sprang up around punk was small, but it enabled a transcendence of violently divided lives and homes at least for a few hours a night. It was a vital lifeline for many punks. However, it has also become a straitjacket because too often when Northern Ireland is mentioned in punk memorials, overviews, exhibits and academic writing, it is in relation to The Troubles and usually from the perspective of men (McLoone 2004; O’Neil and Trelford 2003). We have not been allowed to move forward from a civil war that was not of our generation’s making, and many of us have been forced to witness our stories being sidelined in favour of men’s.

This chapter seeks to redress this loss of balance a little by focusing on the experiences and narratives of women and female-identifying punks from Northern Ireland who identify as straight-edge (sXe), with a particular emphasis on their lives post the Belfast Agreement in 1998. It will speak briefly to methodology before giving a little background into the Belfast Agreement. From there it will outline sXe within Northern Ireland before focusing on how the dismantling of borders and creation of spaces force a consideration of whether this community is a subculture, post-subculture or scene and why that designation matters in Northern Ireland.

Methodology

This chapter is based on multiple in-depth interviews with 17 sXe women and 9 former sXe women in Northern Ireland conducted between 2012 and 2018 for a range of different projects. All of the women are between the ages of 25 and 55 with varying degrees of educational attainment and employment status. Some of the women identify as LGBTQAI+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, asexual, intersex and individuals who do not identify as cisgendered heterosexual but also not as designated in these letters), some as disabled but none as BIPOC (Black, indigenous, people of colour). Most of the women identify as working class, with one woman identifying as middle class and another as ‘formerly working class now unhappily middle-class’ (Emma 2015).

As part of ensuring that their stories are told in their way, interview quotes, while admittedly selected, are not edited. Pauses, self-corrections, word repetitions and sometimes body language are all intentionally included in interview quotes as are subcultural argot, Northern Irish idioms and profanity. Interviewees all chose to have their own name used to retain ownership and responsibility for their voices and stories. This is compatible with the empowering effect that can be created or recaptured through participant identification by choice noted by Giordano et al. (2007) and Grinyer (2002). Anonymizing interviewees is the default position in qualitative work but can be interpreted by the participants as paternalistic (Moore 2012) or result in underlying power structures being unchallenged or even unacknowledged (Baez 2002).

The only instances in which I have overridden the desire to have their own name used in when they have revealed information in the quote that could identify them and place them at risk. In those quotes the name has been withheld but no pseudonym given out of respect. That particular interviewee will find their name attributed, as requested, to other quotes utilized from their interview. Due to the very small nature of the sXe community in Northern Ireland, and their insistence on using their own names, I have not provided any details such as geographical location or age that could identify the interviewees. Only their first names and the years in which they were interviewed are included next to their quotes.

T he Belfast Agreement

Northern Ireland was created in 1921 when the British government, coming under pressure to allow Home Rule in Ireland, created a border around the six north-eastern counties of Ireland and named it as Northern Ireland. These six counties remain under the control of Britain today.⁶ It was a country that ebbed and flowed in relation to violence until the 1960s, when, inspired by the American civil rights movement, the global turn in handing back former colonized lands and easier access to weapons, it erupted into civil war. Daily life became saturated with bombings, shootings, punishment beatings, army checkpoints, house raids and internments.⁷ Officially over 3,700 people died from a country with a population of almost a million, thousands more were injured and hundreds simply disappeared and most of their bodies have never been recovered.

The Belfast Agreement, signed on Good Friday in April 1998, is often seen as the marker for the cessation of the violence. It was a multiparty negotiated agreement that was put to a referendum in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. It became effective in December 1999. The agreement is often misunderstood by outsiders as a creator of peace; it was an agreement to begin the process of finding a lasting means to peace. Since it became effective until April 2018, 158 people have died in what are officially termed ‘security related deaths’.⁸ Belfast in particular, but Northern Ireland as a whole, remains a very divided space that is not easy to navigate but is slowly moving forward.

sXe in Northern Ireland

sXe began in 1981 when Ian MacKaye of the DC hardcore punk band Minor Threat penned the song ‘Straight Edge’ which outlined his personal code of behaviours and attitudes of abstinence in relation to alcohol, drugs, tobacco and sex outside of committed or loving relationships. Unintended by him, it gave rise to a movement that has since become a worldwide one which is estimated to number in the tens of thousands (Haenfler 2006: 186; Stewart 2017: 36). Adherents to sXe self-identify and largely self-govern with no specific figurehead. Commitment is made to ‘the edge’ as a once in a lifetime ‘vow’; breaking edge is irreparable, but seldom will it result in ostracism – especially in Northern Ireland where the community is so small. It is not uncommon for adherents to mark their commitment or identity through the now universal symbol of large Xs drawn on the hands in marker pens – or sometimes tattooed. Initially a mark to prevent the selling of alcohol to underage patrons, it has become a symbol of community and unity.

Although the basic tenets of sXe are simple and largely uncontested, the emergence of bands in the 1990s that emphasized veganism, animal rights and a stronger anti-consumerist stance has led to a continual interpretation and reinterpretation of what constitutes a ‘drug’ (often in relation to caffeine or sugar, sometimes pharmaceuticals), whether veganism is integral to sXe and how to live out an anti-consumerist stance in a subculture that has never been explicitly anarchist or anti-materialist (Kuhn 2019: 7).

Within the context of Northern Ireland, sXe was and remains the smallest subgroup within punk. It ranged from standard hardcore bands such as XXX through to youth crew bands like Circle Again and Breakfall through to vegan sXe bands such as Clean Conscience. Like many sXe bands, these bands were strongly influenced by the North American scenes and bands. For example, as a participant in the scene, I observed how Circle Again (1999–2003) was formed by Melanie after she saw a Sick of It All and Ensign show, recruiting John, Mark and Tadgh to play with her. Northern Ireland is a politically volatile country, and so bands had to decide whether to take overt stances on political issues and identities within a context in which doing so could either bring the attention of paramilitary groups or reinforce already deeply felt divisions and scars. Although a broad generalization, youth crew style bands typically chose to focus on unity and positivity and thus avoid overt political statements, whilst standard hardcore and vegan sXe bands tended to be very politically outspoken, with the latter being consciously and deliberately so.

We knew being overt about our politics, even things like animal rights and hunt sabbing,⁹ could bring a load of trouble our way. We weren’t naïve so we weren’t, but we didn’t think that was reason enough to not do it, you know. What we did give a lot, like loads, of discussion to, was being overt with politics about here, especially like we were worried about it kinda causing or reminding people about a division that people wanted away from for a night, you know. It got to the point we were even thinking about would the spelling of our names cause bother?

(Niamh 2018)

Post the good Friday agreement we did have to give very careful thought to being overtly political. We didn’t come up the Lagan in a bubble, we know that it’s a difficult process and people are being asked to make huge changes and all. At the end of the day though we decided that this was a really important opportunity to shape our wee country and if we got flack for saying we wanted or stood for gay rights, animal rights, freedom from the church then fuck it, it’s worth it. [Pauses] It’s worth it ‘cause at least we’re saying this is what we want our country to be and what we don’t want it to be. [Sighs] Who knows what impact that has on people listening, especially kids.

(Julie 2017)

A key factor in their decision to make overtly political statements is access to punk-specific spaces and proximity to peace walls. Originally erected through communities as a simple barrier in 1969, the peace walls became permanent structures that are at least 25-feet-high concrete walls with additional wire fencing on top of that. In some gardens close to these walls, additional security grating is placed around and above, as seen in Figures 1.1 and 1.2. Most of the walls are in Belfast, but there are also some in Derry/Londonderry, Portadown and Lurgan which are all significant interface areas. Some 10 miles of the walls were erected post the Belfast Agreement in 1998.

Such barriers, as they have become increasingly aesthetically enhanced, with trees and shrubs planted along them, have increased in their sense of permanence and place within the urban landscape and thus mindset. All of the interviewees grew up with these walls already a part of their geographical and psychological mind map; they knew nothing else. Individuals living in the areas closest to the walls were not prepared to make overt political statement in their bands or wear any indication (T-shirts, badges, patches) or support for bands who were overtly political. Instead they wanted to ensure their band stood for positivity, for integration by osmosis and happenstance rather than making it a direct call to action.

Well really what good will come of constantly shouting about it? None. The reality is what it is. People need to feel safe, need to feel secure. We wanted our shows to be places where that happened, where no-one felt on edge or worried that it was gonna kick off. Why remind them about the shite out the door, why not just have fun and let it be that.

(Claire 2017)

Political statements will just bring a load of bother and pain to people. Walking around with things on you that draw attention to political views can get you killed, can hurt people unintentionally. We, um, none of us know what others are carrying you know, so why drag that out. It’s better to just have it as a bit of fun, maybe that will be enough.

(Siobhán 2016)

The second important element in regard to overt political statements was access to punk-specific spaces. There are very few of these in general around Northern Ireland, but there are a small number of spaces that are supportive...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Global Punk
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction: This is the Modern World
• 1. From Belfast With Love: The Women and Female Presenting Punks of Northern Ireland and Their ‘Subculture’
• 2. The Power of Memory: Gender Inequality Among the Berlin Psychobilly Scene
• 3. Trans-Punk: DIY Identities and New Modes of Subjectivity
• 4. Brazilian Riot Grrrls: History, Reflections and Feminist Empowerment in Girls Rock Camps
• 5. Not Just Riot Grrrls! Punk Rock Feminism in the Philippines
• 6. Not Just Boys’ Fun: Punks, Pariah Femininities and Challenges to Gender Hegemony
• 7. Say a Spell: Summoning the Ghosts of Post-Punk Melbourne
• 8. Keeping Japanese Punk Film (A)Live: ShÔzin Fukui’s Concert-Screening Hybridity and Japanese Live House Culture
• 9. ‘Back From the Grave’: Retro Style and Cultural Memory in the Tokyo Garage Rock Scene
• 10. The Punks, The Web, Local Concerns and Global Appeal: Cultural Hybridity in Turkish ¯Hardcore Punk
• 11. Love at First SIP? When Finnish Hardcore Punk Met Alcohol
• 12. Punk is Punk but by No Means Punk: Definition, Genre Evasion and the Quest for an Authentic Voice in Contemporary Russia
• Author Biographies
• Index