Rapping Nationalism
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(W)Rapping Nationalism: Critical Discourse Analysis and Discourse Historical Approach to Interpreting Nationalist Narratives in Serbian Hip Hop Music In partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Arts (MA) Submitted to Karl-Franzens Universität Graz Submitted by Zorana Dimitrijević At the Centre for Southeast European Studies Supervisor: Univ. Prof. Dr. phil Florian Bieber Graz, Austria 2020 ABSTRACT The aim of this Master thesis is to point to the relation between nationalism and hip-hop culture in Serbia since 2012. It includes analysis of the political and social context which allowed nationalist rhetoric to penetrate the sphere of popular music, and explains the main narratives that can be found in it. The songs Dogodine u Prizrenu, Poslednja Straža and Terijerska Krv, recorded in 2016, 2017 and 2018 will be analysed. The main methodology that this thesis is based on is Critical Discourse Analysis and Discourse Historical Approach, with the special focus on exploring the use of topoi of history, threat and saviour. This methodology helps place the discourse used in the songs into relevant historic and political context, and provides tools for interpreting both visual and verbal aspects of the songs. The main findings of the song point to the growing trend in hip-hop music to reflect the dominant nationalist discourse that exists in the public, and can easily be connected to the xenophobic and anti-Albanian statements that exist as part of a comprehensive warmongering and nationalist campaign by the current Government in Serbia. i Table of contents ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………...…...……i Table of contents…………………………………………………………….…..ii Introduction……………………………………………………...………….…..1 Chapter 1 –Methodology and Theoretical Background ……………….…….…..9 1.1. Methodology: Critical Discourse Analysis, Discourse Historical Approach and Topoi.........................................................................9 1.2. Defining Nationalism.....................................................................12 1.3. Defining (Popular) Culture…….....................................................20 Chapter 2 – Next Year in Prizren ........................................................................26 2.1. Introduction.......................................................................................26 2.2. Analysis.............................................................................................27 2.3. The use of topoi..................................................................................35 2.4. Conclusion.........................................................................................37 Chapter 3- The Last Guard..................................................................................39 3.1. Introduction.......................................................................................39 3.2. Analysis.............................................................................................39 3.3. The use of topoi .................................................................................45 3.4. Conclusion.........................................................................................46 Chapter 4 – Terrier Blood...................................................................................47 4.1. Introduction.......................................................................................47 4.2. Analysis ............................................................................................48 4.3. The use of topoi .................................................................................52 4.4. Conclusion.........................................................................................54 Conclusion..........................................................................................................55 Bibliography or Reference List...........................................................................57 Appendix 1 – “Dogodine u Prizrenu”………………………………………..…62 Appendix 2 – “Poslednja Straža“........................................................................66 Appendix 3 – “Terijerska Krv”………………………………....…………...…69 ii Introduction The role of culture in forming and reproducing national identities has been researched by scholars of nationalism for decades. When analyzing the scholarship on the relationship between culture and nationalism, scholars have traditionally mostly focused on ‘national culture’, usually explained as ‘high’ culture, or ‘official’ culture, and this has predominantly been explored from a ‘top down’ approach which sees culture as created and imposed by elites on common people.1 Only in the last decade of the 20th century have scholars started exploring the topic of everyday practices and expressions of nationalism, which was heavily influenced by the work of Michael Billig2, whose seminal work inspired many scholars3 to deal with banal and mundane aspects of nationalism. In spite of expectations and (wrong) predictions about the impact of globalization on creating a homogenous world order, nationalist tendencies in many countries continued to flourish, and develop in unexpected ways, with the help of modern ways of communication and the mass media. That is why many scholars understood that, in order to explain the contemporary forms of nationalism and to analyze the conditions under which these new and modern forms of nationalist discourses emerged, it is necessary to look into the sphere of popular culture. Tim Edensor is certainly one of the scholars whose work contributed to understanding of the relationship between popular culture and national identities the best,4 but academia and scholarship on this topic had to come a long way until popular culture was even recognized as a legit and relevant topic in cultural studies. Edensor argues that traditional forms of Topoi expression of national identity have been replaced by products of popular culture5. For him, the term ‘popular’ refers to everyday practices and products, something that is not usually reflected upon, but exists nonetheless. 1 See i.e.: Gellner 1983, Hobsbawm and Turner 1983 2 Billig, Michael. Banal Nationalism. London: Sage Publications. 1995 3 See i.e.: Brubaker et al.2007, Fox and Miller-Idriss 2008, Skey 2011. 4 Edensor, Tim. National identity, popular culture and everyday life. Oxford: Berg. 2002 5 Ibid, pp 12. 1 In order to understand the role of popular culture, and especially popular music which is the most relevant topic of research for this thesis, we have to look into the work of the Birmingham School of Cultural Studies, whose scholars focused on the political and social importance of popular culture and on the ways that popular music has been used in political purposes. Instead of analyzing how a particular product of popular culture, or a piece of music affects the audience, they looked into the ways that these pieces produce people, as members of a particular community, and how it leads to the creation of a feeling of collective identity. Ernest Gellner wrote that “It is nationalism which engenders nations, and not the other way around”6, which means that for the existence of a nation it is essential to reproduce the feeling of identification with one’s nation. There are many ways that this can be done, and it usually involves representations of certain national traditions, myths of origin, images of historic events that symbolize success and glory, figures of a particular (national) importance, religious symbols, and many other elements. This helps ‘remind’ people of their nationhood and many scholars argue that it helps strengthen the ties between people of the same national community. These common practices, symbols and images are used to help people ‘imagine’ a community, which, as scholars like Anderson and Billig argue, does not exist as a natural phenomenom, but exists only in the minds of their members. In order for people to be able to imagine themselves as belonging to a particular community with people they have never met, images are used to create the feeling of collective identity and collective memory of certain events. In his book “Banal Nationalism”, Billig argues that in order to prevent the collapse of a national community, people have to be able to identify with the concept of nationhood. Billig also writes about the ways that this consciousness of nationhood is used as a tool for mobilizing people in situations of crises. On the other hand, he emphasizes that the feeling of belonging to a particular nation is not (re)produced in times of crises, but in everyday lives of people, through their daily activities. It is the images and activities people experience in their day to day lives, as well as things they read in newspaper and hear about in media that reproduce nationhood. 6 Gellner, Ernest. Nations and Nationalism. Oxford:Blackwell. 1983, pp. 55. 2 Benedict Anderson also emphasized the importance of newspapers throughout the history of creating and spreading the feeling of belonging to an ‘imagined community’7. Apart from the idea that a nation, or imagined community as he calls it, is a socially constructed community, constituted by people who simply believe in it, or imagine it, Anderson claims that the ritual of reading the newspaper is of a great importance, as it helps people imagine that it is the activity that they share with other members of the community, regardless of the physical distance between them. In addition to that, Anderson argues that it is this activity in particular,