Musical ecologies of grief
Breathing and environmental justice in Love Ssega’s “Our World (Fight for Air)”
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21981995 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Rowan Bayliss Hawitt (0000-0002-7297-5128, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 27-42 |
| Publication date | 2022-12-16 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | IASPM Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2079-3871 • E-ISSN: 2079-3871 |
| Publisher | International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.5429/2079-3871(2022)v12i1.3en |
| OpenAlex | W4389975778 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 25 |
This paper will consider how ecological grief is managed in “Our World (Fight for Air)”, a single released in 2021 by British-Ugandan musician Love Ssega, which addresses the deadly consequences of air pollution on the South Circular road in London. In light of sparse musicological engagement with ecological grief and air, I bring together the concepts of a “political ecology of air-and-breathing-bodies” (Allen 2020) and “weathering” (Neimanis and Walker 2014) to illustrate that, in Ssega’s work, (safe) breathing becomes political, traversed by vectors of race and class. Paying attention to air and breathing facilitates an understanding of how Ssega’s music can help us grieve well, on scales attuned to both individual tragedy and the enormous, distributed nature of environmental pollution. I argue that this music shapes “ecologies of grief” which are communal and therefore can help us engage with loss, not merely as mourners, but as makers of safer futures
Aesthetics · Art · Computer security · Criminology · Economic Justice · Environmental ethics · Environmental justice · Grief · Musical · Political science · Politics · Psychotherapist · SAFER · Social science · Sociology · Visual arts · Computer Science · Diverse Musicological Studies · Law · Music History and Culture · Philosophy · Psychology
Eco‐anxiety, Tragedy, and Hope
Hip-Hop Ethos
Exploring the role of music in grief
Breathing Matters
Ecological grief as a mental health response to climate change-related loss
Staying with the Trouble
Recreational grief as resonance - sociological notes on grief in popular culture
Don't Organize, Mourn
Musical aesthetics below ground
Exploring the essential psychological factors in fostering hope concerning climate change
Hope and climate change
Sound Continuing Bonds with the Deceased
Weathering
In the Meantime
La musique a-t-elle causé la fin du monde
Letting Geography Fall Where it May - Aerographies Address the Elemental
Shaping an Ear for Climate Change
On the Metrical Techniques of Flow in Rap Music
The aurality of pipeline politics and listening for nacreous clouds
A sound track to ecological crisis
Popular Music and the Anthropocene
Thinking with a Feminist Political Ecology of Air-and-breathing-bodies
Flowing Down Taiwan's Tamsui River
Condition-Suspension
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |