Detroit Techno City: Ethnography, Local Community, and Global Fans
by Dr Carla Vecchiola, Senior Lecturer from Wayne State University
Date: Thursday, 23 October 2008
Time: 3.00pm
Venue: USP Conference Room, Level 7, Blk ADM
Abstract
Cybotron’s “Techno City” was one of the earliest compositions of Detroit techno, an electronic dance music created in the early 1980s that, along with Chicago’s house music, established the foundation for all of the genres of music currently called electronica. This presentation will examine the Detroit Electronic Music (DEM) community as a sign of urban vitality and rootedness in the face of Detroit's popular reputation as the epitome of American urban crisis. This presentation will address the importance of the method of ethnography when approaching the study of a complicated place like Detroit. DEM participants have used electronic music to push back against the social and economic forces that have shaped American urban cores into urban crisis. DEM is characterized by independent entrepreneurial activity, community activism, and international visibility. This case study of the DEM community demonstrates the central role that locally-based cultural production and entrepreneurship can play in the economic and social revitalization of American urban cores. DEM musicians and participants have created small, independent businesses through which they reach out to a global audience interested not only in Detroit music but also in Detroit as a cultural space. The musicians’ use of changing communication technologies has connected them to fans around the globe. Was this step made necessary by their position in a marginalized city? This presentation will address the implications of global digital communities emerging from localized urban places.
About the Speaker
Carla Vecchiola received her doctorate from the interdisciplinary Program of American Culture at the University of Michigan. She is currently a senior lecturer in the Honors College of Wayne State University in Detroit. Her research interests include urban places, residential segregation, cultural production, and urban ethnography. She is interested in community engagement and public practice.
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