'We got the power!' The political potential of street choirs

Abstract

Song has the power to express a social truth and is consistently employed in actions across the world in solidarity with political struggle. This article discusses the campaigning work of the Campaign Choirs Network, a UK network of radical political choirs, whose story is founded on diverse solidarities and a commitment to singing as a means of emotional engagement and pedagogy. The network has conducted a participatory action research programme, including oral history interviews with 42 members of 11 street choirs, exploring members' life-course activism and their utopian imaginaries. As one aspect of their research, the authors sought to more fully understand the emotions that song and singing release, and the connections that can then be made between people – in order to find out more about the nature of the power of song and the political possibilities of such connections. Drawing extensively on the interviews, this article discusses the political and pedagogic possibilities of the emotions released through singing.