(Im)possibility of doing Ethnomusicology beyond Urban/Rural Dichotomy

Abstract

The dichotomy between urban and rural culture was accentuated and partially constructed by early European ethnographic disciplines. Though the critical discourse and paradigmatic changes brought the clear divisions between those two cultures into question, perception of the urban/rural dichotomy still persists in daily discourse and can be frequently encountered in discourses about music. The case study focusing on popular music bands and gig players from the town of Križevci in Croatia shows some of the mechanisms of maintaining this perception. Special attention in the analysis of those mechanisms is given to two musicians, local epitomes of “urban” and “rural”. The analysis of the local meaning of dichotomy brings attention to differences in music venues, repertoire, style, instrumentation, and virtuosity; aspects of education and social status of musicians. The results of the ethnographic fieldwork show that the local usage of urban/rural dichotomy can express specific issues of class distinction among local musicians, but also struggles of identity formation of a small post-socialist town in the course of loss of its economic and political power.