Refraining on necropolitics: lyrical geographies of labor music

ABSTRACT

All music takes place somewhere. While geographic analyses of lyrics have focused on the geographies of artists and/or particular places and regions of their inspiration, we see a developing opportunity to discuss music as a fundamental component of social resistance. While scholars have discussed social resistance in music as practiced by artists, such a focus has been researched less in regard to entire social movements on a certain topic. We will fill that gap here by discussing the role that labor plays in popular music lyrics. Using a qualitative analysis of historic and contemporary songs, this paper posits that necropolitics – analyzing the source of power over an individual’s positionality and physical well-being – stands at the core of such song meanings. Therefore, as a result, much labor music incites Marxian understandings of capitalism, poverty, and degraded social reproduction. We suggest this assessment offers a deeper insight into such lyrics and also helps explain the anthemic popularity of many labor-focused songs that have appealed to the working class over many decades.

KEYWORDS:

• Music
• labor
• capitalism
• necropolitics

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the anonymous reviewers and Dr. Schnell for their comments on the previous versions of this paper. Music means a lot to us; we thank these and other artists for their illustration and commentary on labor and other aspects of our lives in an effort to promote justice for all.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 S.P., or Southern Pacific, was one of the many railroad companies which saw strike action during the Illinois Central Shopmen’s Strike of 1911.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mark A. Rhodes

Mark A. Rhodes is an Assistant Professor of Geography at Michigan Technological University and his research critically examines the intersections of memory, identity, culture, and landscape, particularly in postindustrial contexts.

Chris W. Post

Chris W. Post is a Professor of Geography at Kent State University’s Stark Campus in North Canton, Ohio, and focuses his research on place identity through commemoration and music.