Fragile Scenes: Metal, Rap, and Electro in Post-Revolutionary Tunisia Author Barone, Stefano Published 2016 Thesis Type Thesis (PhD Doctorate) School School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science DOI https://doi.org/10.25904/1912/2257 Copyright Statement The author owns the copyright in this thesis, unless stated otherwise. Downloaded from http://hdl.handle.net/10072/366023 Griffith Research Online https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au FRAGILE SCENES METAL, RAP, AND ELECTRO IN POST-REVOLUTIONARY TUNISIA Stefano Barone BA, MA School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research Arts, Education & Law Griffith University Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 22 June 2016 0 ABSTRACT The thesis analyses three youth cultures in contemporary Tunisia: metal, rap, and electro. Tunisia is a North-African country which has often been represented as a bridge between Europe and the Arab/Muslim world. It is a crossroad of cultural influences, and its complex situation of economic disadvantage and social inequality imposes peculiar conditions to the existence of local youth cultures and popular music scenes. Moreover, its history of dictatorship, and its 2011 revolution (which inaugurated the so-called Arab Springs), render it a locus of political and cultural struggle. For these reasons, the Tunisian context offers the possibility of expanding the research on youth culture beyond the much-covered West. The thesis is built upon data coming from a fieldwork research that was carried out for eleven months between 2014 and 2015. Data were collected through interviews with 70 participants in the three scenes (musicians, concert organisers, venue managers, journalists, fans); through participant observations at concerts, DJ sets, and other sites of scene interaction; and through the analysis of textual data coming from Internet websites, song lyrics, newspapers, and the like. Metal, rap, and electro are studied through the framework of scene (Bennett and Peterson, 2004). Scene has become, since the 1990s, a useful tool for studying youth and popular music cultures in a less static and essentialised way than classical approaches based on subculture. Scene has been conceived as a space of practices in which different cultural sensibilities interact, cultural products are fostered, and identities are developed. Moreover, scene well explains the interactions between youth cultures and locality. The thesis focuses on the relations between locality in the traditional sense of the spatial positioning of a cultural phenomenon and locality as explained by Arjun Appadurai (1996). For Appadurai, locality is a 'structure of feeling' that produces togetherness. At the same time, it needs to be constantly revived and offers the context for conflicts. In this sense, Tunisian scenes as fragile ones: the poor conditions in which they exist, and their own precariousness, influence the structure of scenes' internal cohesion, putting them on a constant risk of disappearance. The symbolic dimension of locality and the fragility of scenes are articulated through the concept of sceneness: sceneness is the density of a scene’s existence and interactions: it is a form of emotional proximity that creates social proximity. Sceneness is shaped by the interactions of scenes’ infrastructures and discourses, and, as such, it can take 1 different forms within the same scene, thus functioning as an element of conflict, pushing the evolution of scenes and, sometimes, their dissolution. The fragility of sceneness offers the base for a broader reflection on scenes and locality in Tunisia. How are the local metal, rap, and electro scenes structured? What are the consequences of the interplay between the Tunisian context and the existence of those scenes? What kind of material infrastructures (bands, labels, webzines and the like) are thus fashioned, and how do these infrastructures interact with the sense of togetherness, and the moral meanings that members of the scenes invest into them? A second point of interest concerns the Tunisian local and its interactions with the three scenes. What is the place of local phenomena such as Islam, Tunisian folklore(s), Middle Eastern identities inside metal, rap, and electro scenes? A third focus relates to the political transformations of Tunisia: in which way do scenes articulate the post-revolutionary experience, and what can we learn, by the Tunisian case, about the debate on youth cultures and resistance? The thesis is organised in three parts. Part One sets the background for the study. The first two chapters offer a review of literature on youth cultures and popular music in the West and in non-western contexts, and a theoretical elaboration on sceneness and fragility. Chapter 3 analyses the contemporary history of Tunisia and its social and political stakes. Chapter 4 focuses on the methodology employed in the research. Part Two delves into the analysis of the three scenes: metal, rap, and electro are examined in separate chapters and then are compared in Chapter 8, along the lines of sceneness and the common influence of State intervention. Part Three shifts the focus to the Tunisian local as intended in a concrete sense. In particular, Chapter 9 recapitulates the interactions between Tunisian scenes and religion, and puts scenes in the context of the struggle for a Tunisian national culture. Chapter 10 analyses the ways in which social inequality is articulated by metal, rap, and electro; while Chapter 11 investigates the links between the three scenes and the Tunisian political environment, with an attention on the changes brought by the 2011 revolution. 2 STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY This work has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself. (Signed) Stefano Barone 3 CONTENTS A NOTE ON THE ARABIC TRANSLITERATIONS USED IN THE TEXT 9 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 10 PUBLICATIONS ARISING FROM DISSERTATION 12 INTRODUCTION. TRASH INTO TRASH, CLUBBING 13 STORMTROOPERS, AND A PHOENIX THAT STRUGGLES TO RISE AGAIN PART ONE. BACKGROUND 20 CHAPTER ONE. FROM SUBCULTURE TO SCENENESS. 21 AN OVERVIEW OF YOUTH CULTURE STUDIES AND A REWORKING OF SCENE 1. Introduction 21 2. Subcultural and post-subcultural paradigms 21 2.1 Subculture and its critics 21 2.2 Post-subcultures and beyond 24 3. Defining scenes 28 3.1 The debate on scenes 29 3.2 Scenes, fields, and the habitus 35 3.3 Sceneness 37 4. Conclusion 42 CHAPTER TWO 44 YOUTH CULTURE BEYOND THE COMFORT ZONE. METAL, RAP, AND ELECTRO IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH 1. Introduction 44 2. Subculture and post-subculture outside the west 45 3. Metal worldwide 50 4. Global rap culture and the MENA region 56 5. Native electronics, techno-nomadism, and dance tourism 62 6. Conclusion 66 4 CHAPTER THREE. POST-REVOLUTIONARY DISPATCHES. AN 68 OVERVIEW OF CONTEMPORARY TUNISIAN HISTORY 1. Introduction 68 2. A permanent fin de regne? 68 3. Revolution and beyond: 2011 – 2013 73 4. 4. 2014 and 2015 78 5. Conclusion 81 CHAPTER FOUR. METHODOLOGY 83 1. Ethnography and Ethos 83 1.1 A sensory access to fieldwork 83 1.2 Ethos as a methodological tool 85 2. Research methods 90 3. Ethics, challenges, and future perspectives 94 4. Conclusion 98 PART TWO. THE DISPUTED UNDERGA3 99 CHAPTER FIVE. THE 'HEINOUS COLLAPSE' OF TUNISIAN METAL 100 1. The agony of a scene 100 2. Metal Wars 105 2.1 Contested spaces 105 2.2 Contested history. Anciens and gamins 110 3. Conclusion 116 CHAPTER SIX. THE WEIRD SUCCESS OF RAP 118 5 1. The sound of revolution 118 2. Spaces and times of the rap scene 124 2.1 Space of 'hoods, time of generations 125 2.2 Distance and collaboration 129 3. Conclusion 134 CHAPTER SEVEN. DOWNTOWN (ELECTRONIC) VIBES 136 1. Electro and the perils of nightlife 136 2. Electro undergrounds 143 2.1 Undergrounds germinate 143 2.2 Conflictual undergrounds 147 3. Conclusion 155 CHAPTER EIGHT. DISCUSSION. THE CONSTRUCTION AND 156 STRUCTURE OF TUNISIAN SCENES 1. Scenes and the State 156 1.1 Copyrights and the absent State 156 1.2 Corruption, repression, and the cultural ‘bread run’ 160 2. Community and sceneness 166 2.1 Mundanity and transgression 166 2.2 The uses of community 169 3. Conclusion 176 PART THREE. SHADES OF THE LOCAL 177 CHAPTER NINE. IDEOSCAPES OF TUNISIAN-NESS. RELIGION, 178 ORIENTALISM, AND NATIONAL CULTURE 6 1. Introduction 178 2. Religion and youth culture in Tunisia 179 2.1 Religion, politics, and the ethos 181 2.2 “I slam!”: metal, religion, and irreligiousness 184 2.3 Rap and Islam 188 3. Oriental selves 193 3.1 Metal bellydancers and clubbing dervishes 193 3.2 The Tunisian cool 199 4. Conclusion 205 CHAPTER TEN. REFRACTED INEQUALITIES. SCENES, LIFESTYLES, 207 AND THE TUNISIAN SOCIAL STRUCTURE 1. Introduction 207 2. Tunisian lifestyles 207 2.1 Social inequality through the ethos prism 209 2.2 The fruitful ambiguity of Tunisian lifestyles 209 3. Sons of the houma. Rap and the extreme local 212 4. Electro and exclusion 218 5. The “elite marginality” of metal 223 6. Conclusion 229 CHAPTER ELEVEN. WAVES OF REVOLUTION. THE POLITICAL 231 DIMENSION OF TUNISIAN SCENES 1. Introduction 231 2. The political economy of the rap scene 231 7 2.1 Discipline through inclusion, discipline through repression 233 2.2 “Democratisation” and the rap economy 239 3. Corpses, and still no life: metal and revolution 245 3.1 “The Ben Ali of the metal scene” 245 3.2 Revolution and the crisis of metal 248 4. Conclusion 253 CONCLUSION. SAVE YOUR LIFE 255 BIBLIOGRAPHY 260 8 A NOTE ON ARABIC TRANSLITERATIONS USED IN THE TEXT The transliterations of Arabic characters I employed in this thesis are based on the two main forms of transliteration used in Tunisia.