"Globalization From Below:
 Contingency, Conflict, Contestation in Historical Perspective"

                                       February 6th-8th, 1998
                              Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA
 
 

The source of 'world music' is in non-western musical traditions, but by definition, 'world music' is only 'produced' in the west, for western consumers. 'World music' presents itself as the opportunity for an omnivorous consumption of indigenous traditions, when in fact selects a single version of non-western musical traditions of the 'bouncy' native, a dancing, rhythmic, cultural other, which paradoxically is also able to consume music might not seem so happy, which concerns itself with resistance to western colonialism, and increasingly, to the west-centered and west-benefiting drive to 'globalization' itself. 'World music' also has some grey-areas, such as ethnic music that shows every sign of 'belonging' to the west, as well as 'problem zones,' regions of the world whose classification is in transition, such as Eastern Europe and Scandinavia (whose music is generally included as 'world music') and Mexico (whose musical presence in the U.S. market is large enough to have largely 'blended' into other marketing categories).

Only in the west is there a music industry self-contained (isolated) enough that music from all other parts of the world (except, perhaps, a very small slice of the music being produced in the Caribbean, which is 'Reggae') could be marketed under a single banner irrespective of the vast differences that exist between musical traditions. In addition to the marketing element in the production of 'world music,' there is the other kind of 'production,' that which pertains to the content of world-music recordings: the characteristics of the artists which are chosen for mass-distribution as 'world music.' In both cases, my suspicion is that 'world music' is 'produced' in the interests of furthering the identification of the west with transnational capital, and is therefore a form of globalization 'from above.' However, rather than simply denouncing the pernicious marketing edifice of 'world music,' I only wish to attack the predictable pattern of western consumption and western profit produced by 'world music' in the interest of beginning to schematize alternative circuits of production and consumption of popular music in non-western locales, circuits which might be indicative of a truer and more equitable 'globalization' than the one suggested by 'world music.'

In this paper I will test the thesis of 'world music's' relationship to = transnational capital by listening attentively to 'world music' = recordings released by some of the major 'world music' labels such as Realworld/Caroline, Mango and Shanachie, as well as by reading critically major industry periodicals such as RootsWorld and The Beat. Additionally, I will think critically about classifying new hybrid forms of music not commonly marketed as 'world music,' produced by artists such as the Kronos Quartet, Bally Sagoo, Apache Indian, Deep Forest, Zap Mama, Asian Dub Foundation, the 'Goa Trance' subgenre of 'rave' music, DJ Q-Bert, and Ali Farka Tour=E9. Finally, I will step outside of the paradigm of 'world-music' altogether, to examine the globalizing circuits of popular music as produced, distributed, and consumed outside of the western world. I will research international sales patterns of artists who have been important in this way, such as the Moroccan artist Khaled.

In contrast to 'world music,' a globalizing 'punk' seems to have the potential to exist in non-western locales independent of transnational capital, to be 'produced' in those areas as well as distributed and consumed where it is produced. In its most naive and uncorrupted forms, 'punk' in fact militantly insists on its own independence from all established social institutions, generally including those of capitalist and corporatist business structures. Through its insistence on collective identity in micro-localities ("scenes"), its numerous small-scale periodicals ("zines") and independent networks of distribution of text, art, clothing and music, globalizing 'punk' might articulate a decentered aggregation of global cultures, operating on their own grids of exchange, and with their own subversive ideas about 'development,' 'progress,' 'humanity' - generally expressive of defiance for these buzz-concepts of teleological modernity. However, there are a number of fundamental paradoxes to even the naive, underdeveloped form the 'punk' ethos and expressive culture ways in which its appearance is specifically predicated on the presence of transnational capital, a high level of industrialization, and a leisure economy with a developed adolesecent commodity-culture. Punk may turn out to be in fact a 'shadow' of globalization, a minor instance of heterogeneity reflecting a broader cultural tendency towards assimilation to the values and dissolutive tendencies of transnational capital.

Punk appears to have globalized in a much less systematic way than, say Coca Cola. At an admittedly preliminary stage in research of the subject, I have been able to detect significant instances of 'punk' communities in nearly every nation and national language of the west, including an extensive punk community in Israel. This proliferation is in itself a relatively recent phenomenon, for until the late 1980's, punk was generally only found in Northern Europe, the U.S., and Australia. Outside of the west, there are extensively developed punk communities in parts of Mexico and Latin America (particularly Ecuador, Brazil, and Argentina), in certain areas of East Asia and Southeast Asia (particularly Thailand, the Philipines, Singapore, and Taiwan), and especially in Japan. There are few signs of 'punk' communities in many of the areas from which 'world music' is most intensely mined: Africa, the Caribbean, and South Asia. In order to understand why this is so, it will be necessary to re-theorize 'punk' in terms of its relationship to ethnicity and ethnic difference (as a consequence of immigration) in a given locale (a relationship first pointed out by Dick Hebdige in Subculture: The Meaning of Style); its relationship to industrial and post-industrial labor and education environments; and finally, its relationship to the movements of transnational capital in its broadest sense.

I will be referring extensively to 'punk' periodicals and music produced in non-western locales, such as Profane Existence Far East, and Maximum Rock 'n' Roll "scene reports," which are sent in independently from locations all over the world. I am also interested in punk bands which link Latin America, Mexico, and Latino and Chicano communities in the U.S., as especially expressed in bands such as Huasipungo and Los Crudos. I am also interested in the attitudes toward 'global punk' in U.S. punk cultures, as expressed by The Nation of Ulysses, Man is the Bastard, in the figure of U.S. punk anti-legend Sam McPheeters, as reflected in the ideological collapse manifesting a kind of 'punk' postmodernism in his latest band, The Men's Recovery Project.

Some questions by way of conclusion: What might the relationship between 'world music' and 'punk' be? U.S. punks are known to have a particular distaste for 'world music'; how do people in non-western locales feel about punks in the U.S. and in Europe? Is there any overlap in terms of who consumes what music? And finally, how to read the recent release of the "Ethnopunk" CD on the Realworld label? Are there any signs of a DIY-ization of 'world music' (i.e., the inception of low-budget, low-fi music produced in non-western locales and distributed internationally via independent circuits)?
 

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