Singing ‘with culture
Popular musicians and affective labour in state-socialist Albania
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8124018 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Nicholas Tochka (0000-0002-0964-0827, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 26 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 289-306 |
| Publication date | 2017-09-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | British Journal of Ethnomusicology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0968-1221 • E-ISSN: 1741-1920 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/17411912.2017.1407950 |
| OpenAlex | W2772228362 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
| References cited | 17 |
This article examines how composers, bureaucrats and musicians themselves disciplined the singer’s body in state-socialist Albania. Drawing together film analysis and interviews with socialist-era musicians, I analyse the constraints imposed on performing bodies in order to explore the political consequences of singers’ affective labour during the 1970s and 1980s. My analysis reveals how the most popular stars crafted performing personae, as ‘cultured’ citizens, and conceptualised the social significance of their affective labour, as part of a broader political project aiming to uplift listeners. In negotiating these dual aims, singers simultaneously created musically and personally meaningful lives while participating in state-socialist projects to remake society. In describing the political consequences of affective labour in this particular non-capitalist context, the article contributes to recent studies of eastern bloc cultural economies, while also problematising the status of ‘affective labour’ as an analytical valence in ethnomusicology
Aesthetics · Art · Context (archaeology · Economics · Ethnomusicology · Musical · Negotiation · Political science · Politics · Singing · Social science · Sociology · State (computer science · Visual arts · Balkans: History, Politics, Society · Diverse Musicological Studies · Music History and Culture · History · Law
Music (as) Labour
Making New Music in Cold War Poland
Staging Socialist Femininity
The affective turn in ethnomusicology
Voicing freedom, sounding dissent
Fieldwork Dilemmas
From the communist point of view
MacedonianČalgija
The Problem with Work
Engendering Song. Singing and Subjectivity at Prespa Albanian Weddings
From source to commodity
The Hard Work of Screaming
Theorizing socialism
| Unique citing works | 7 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,17 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2025 (6) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |