Teaching folk : the educational institutionalization of folk music in contemporary England

Abstract

This thesis offers an ethnomusicological account of a contemporary movement toward the formalization of education in England's folk music culture. The report considers, in particular, two case studies: Folkworks and the associated degree course in folk and traditional music at Newcastle University; and the folk festival subcontractor organization, Shooting Roots. These are located first within the socio-historical context of the English folk revivals, and then within the - largely disparate - contemporary musical-cultural contexts of the North East of England, and (southern) `England' respectively. Methodologies for the research draw predominantly on ethnographic techniques of participant-observation and interview, but these are combined with the less orthodox methods of internet and media-based fieldwork to offer the widest sociocultural contextualization of the movement. The discourses surrounding these cases are analysed in terms of pedagogy, education markets and a folk music industry, whilst the musical texts with which they deal are shown simultaneously to assert and repudiate regional and national identities. The thesis also offers key examples of the influences of such institutionalization beyond the boundaries of organizations themselves. It concludes that it is possible to regard the movement as a manifestation of an individualistconsumerist culture and goes on to propose some critical theories of the movement in relation to processes such as elitism, standardization and recontextualization.