Women in Punk Creating Queer Identity Spaces: Strategies of Resistance Revisited

Women in Punk Creating Queer Identity Spaces: Strategies of Resistance Revisited Megan Sharp, Bachelor of Social Sciences (Honours) Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Newcastle, September 2017 Declaration Statement of Originality The thesis contains no material which has been accepted for award of any other degree or diploma in a university or other tertiary institution and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference has been made in the text. I give consent to the final version of my thesis being made available worldwide when deposited in the University’s Digital Repository, subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. I hereby certify that the work embodied in this thesis contains material from some published papers work of which I am a joint or sole author. I have included as part of the thesis a written statement, endorsed by my supervisor, attesting to my contribution to the joint publications work. I have also described the location of all previously published material in the thesis. Signed: Date: 5 September 2017 Published Material Portions of this thesis have been published in the following journals and conference proceedings: Sharp, M. and Nilan, P. 2017 Floorgasm: Queers(s), Resilience and Solidary in Punk. Emotion, Space and Society. Published online August 2017. Available: https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.emospa.2017.06.005 Parts of this paper appear in Chapter Six and Eight. Sharp, M. and Renaud, E. 2016. Digital Queers: Exploring LGBTIQA+ online spaces and queer(ed) research methodologies. TASA Genders and Sexuality Blog [online]. Available at: https://gendersandsexualities.tasa.org.au/digital-queers-exploring-lgbtiqa-online-spaces-and-queered-research-methodologies/ Parts of this paper appear in Chapter Four. Sharp, M. and Nilan, P. 2015. Queer Punx: Young Women in the Newcastle Hardcore Space. Journal of Youth Studies, 18(4), 451-467. Available : http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1080/13676261.2014.963540 This paper is cited in Chapters Five, Six, Seven and Eight. It contains data from the Honours project that formed the pilot study for this thesis Acknowledgements My greatest thanks go to my supervisors, Professor Pam Nilan and Dr. Steven Threadgold. Being part of your team has been a highlight of the last four years. Watching you work together and with me has been invaluable to my project and even more so, my understanding that good support from good people is the underpinning of great research. I will carry your knowledge into my future career and pay it forward wherever I can. Support and good friends get no better than my Queer Coven who kept me laughing and light- hearted throughout my PhD adventure. Joel, Barrie and Eli, you three are the dream team and I feel grateful to get to see and hear your smarts every day. Your insights have helped me though some difficult academic terrain and I appreciate you all, forever. Thank you to my family for listening to my complaints and telling me to keep at it, for never doubting me and always celebrating my achievements, no matter how small. I am very lucky to have you all. Special thanks to my beautiful and hilarious sister, Heather, for all that you do for me. I promise it does not go unnoticed. You are wonderful. Mates. You are all the lights of my life. It would be an exhaustive list to write you all down here (and I’m lucky it is that way) but know that I think of you all often. I’m grateful to you all, and none of this could have been possible without your support. You have all contributed to this work and I think of it as ours. I also want to acknowledge the investments that my colleagues at UoN have made in me and thank them for the opportunities they have given me. Ann, Dave, Julia, Lena, Michelle, Alex, Terry, Kristen and Akane, thank you and I look forward to all of your future research. To Eden, we have a come a long way bb. Thank you for finding me, and for all of your unfiltered love and support. For the midnight cake and early morning coffee, for being patient and kind. I’ve got you. This acknowledgement section would not be complete without a dedication to someone who has opened doors for me that, sometimes, I did not even know were there. To Lauren, your generous heart and open mind have made an impact so great, it needs to be documented. So this one is for you. Ripper. Abstract This research presents a contemporary snapshot of queer engagement with punk fields in an Australian and UK context. Conducted from an ‘insider’ position, the study finds that queer women and gender diverse people are configuring resistance to hegemonically masculine music scenes by building communities of praxis. Through a Do It Together (DIT) spirit, marginalised groups are dualistically initiating resistance and collectivism at gigs, making zines and forming bands, as well broadly positioning intersectionality as key to creating safe(r) punk spaces. Queer punx are using resistance as practical tool of foregrounding productivity and longevity in their scenes though generating ephemeral archives where remembering is both affective and transformative. Queer punx deconstruct what we know of the spatiality of resistance – how it is invoked, configured, unpacked and reconfigured. Incorporating affective atmospheres into an analysis of queer(ed) punk space as sites of resistance, this research analyses affective, spatial and temporal spaces of collective embodiments. Drawing on interviews, formal participant observation, as well as reflexively drawing on 15 years of lived experience and relationship building within punk scenes, this study revisits Halberstam’s concepts of strategies of resistance and rewriting narratives to add a new perspective to understanding punk practice. Considering Muñoz’s queer futurity as well as Hammers’ collective authorisation, queer women and gender diverse people’s experiential knowledges and identities are explored to contribute new knowledge to a queer archive. Importantly, this research problematises feminist constructions of women and gender diverse people as invisible subjects, instead remarking them as hypervisible but unknowable. Glossary of Terms ..................................................................................................................... 7 Chapter One: Introduction ...................................................................................................... 12 Interlude ............................................................................................................................................... 15 Chapter Outline ........................................................................................................................... 18 Chapter Two: Theoretical Framework ................................................................................... 22 Youth and Subcultures ................................................................................................................ 23 Classical Gender Theory ............................................................................................................. 26 Gender: Non-essentialist Perspectives ........................................................................................ 27 Feminism in Review ................................................................................................................... 29 Heterosexuality and Gender: The Heterosexual Matrix ............................................................. 32 The Contribution of Queer Theory ............................................................................................. 34 Embodying Queer: Non-Normative Positions ............................................................................ 37 Collective Authorisation of Queer .............................................................................................. 40 Affect and Queering Space ......................................................................................................... 41 Symbolic Violence as a Technology of Subordination ............................................................... 43 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................... 45 Chapter Three: Literature Review .......................................................................................... 48 Punk History ............................................................................................................................... 49 Queer Punk History ..................................................................................................................... 53 Scenes and Subcultures ............................................................................................................... 56 Do It Together as Space Making ................................................................................................. 59 Archiving and Queer(ed) Cultural Production ............................................................................ 60 Queer Space: Bodies and Embodiment ....................................................................................... 64 The Queer(ed) Subject Position .................................................................................................. 67 Age and Queer Punx Trajectories ..............................................................................................

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