Abstract
Music consumption has undergone significant changes during recent years with the development of new media technologies and the availability of music on the Internet. This has had a particularly striking impact on the lives of migrants and their connections with both the diaspora and country of origin. This paper explores the correlation between music consumption and the articulation and negotiation of multiple identities and relationships by examining the role that mediated music has played in the life of one Moroccan man at different stages of his migratory journey from Morocco to Britain. In particular, I consider how the rise in new media in the form of music sharing websites (such as YouTube) enables migrants to reconstruct notions of kinship and friendship in new ways by constructing transnational cyber-communities whose focus is music consumption. As music clips and comments are exchanged between cousins, brothers, sons and mothers living across three continents, I explore how previously encountered ethnic and national identities are individually and communally re-negotiated and re-imagined and, at times, a sense of belonging and well-being is experienced.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Migrating Music |
| Editors | Jason Toynbee, Byron Dueck |
| Place of Publication | London |
| Publisher | Routledge |
| Pages | 38-54 |
| Number of pages | 16 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 978-0203841754 |
| ISBN (Print) | 978-0415594486 , 978-0415633598 , 0415594480 |
| Publication status | Published - 28 Apr 2011 |