Global Music, Local Culture: Popular Music Making in Canada and Greece

Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation is to better theorize the relationship between cultural production, popular music and cultural identity. While broadly examining popular music, the primary focus of this study is on black popular music making and hip hop cultures in Canada and Greece. My dissertation focuses upon three distinct case studies in Toronto, Canada; Athens, Greece; and Vancouver, Canada. Each of the three case studies in my dissertation contributes, and offers revisions, to Bourdieusian studies of cultural production. Whether it is DJs in Toronto trying to assert authorship and legitimate their roles as musicians, an MC in Vancouver trying to conceptualize a new mode of diasporic belonging for Greeks of the diaspora, or male hip hop practitioners in Athens utilizing their historical knowledge of the Greek field of popular music to authenticate their pursuits in rap music, each case study provides a different lens through which to understand how popular music makers use music in their quests for cultural legitimacy, diasporic belonging and/or authentication. Through an emphasis on location, cultural identity and collective history, each case study advances Bourdieu's field theory in new directions. Drawing on, and refining Bourdieu, I demonstrate how an analysis of popular music has much to offer sociological studies of cultural production.