PUNK SCHOLARS NETWORK SEVENTH ANNUAL CONFERENCE & POSTGRADUATE SYMPOSIUM
A VIRTUAL, ONLINE GLOBAL CONFERENCE ORGANISED BY THE PUNK SCHOLARS NETWORK
13-19TH DECEMBER 2020
In October 2014, the first Punk Scholars Network Postgraduate Symposium at Leicester University provided an informal and collective space for postgraduate students to air their research, and where ideas and experiences could be raised, explored, pondered and shared. Since then, the Punk Scholars Network in the United Kingdom has organised an annual Conference and Postgraduate Symposium in different cities and host institutions. Events at Birmingham City University, Northampton, Bolton, De Montfort (Leicester) and Newcastle drew delegates from around the world to a central platform for debate. Across this period the PSN has also supported the establishment of a series of national and regional groups in Australia, the United States, Brazil, Colombia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iberia, Indonesia, Spain, Canada and Greece.
Punk is a truly global phenomenon that manifests in myriad ways in different scenes, political regimes, cultural contexts and individual experiences. Punk is many things to many people and seldom remains static over a lifetime. Increased globalisation, changes in connectivity and technology, and shifts in both capitalism and populism have impacted punk for better and worse. International and intranational punk scenes and connections are growing and finding commonality and conflict through music, education, mutual aid, performance, political activism and human behaviours. The global Coronavirus pandemic has laid bare the differences people face accessing resources and how governments respond. How have, and how will, various local punk scenes respond to this crisis, and what does their response tell us about punk as a global phenomenon?
The Global Punk book series endeavours to capture the spread and variance of punk across the world (Bestley, Dines, Gordon & Guerra 2019, 2021; Rodríguez-Ulloa, Quijano & Greene 2021; Bestley, Dines, Grimes & Guerra 2021). Meanwhile, the journal Punk & Post-Punk regularly features contributions from a variety of geographical locations and settings. With these efforts, and others, serving as a base we chose to hold an entirely virtual conference in 2020 that explores, examines and critically engages with punk scholars around the globe.
Taking global punk seriously as a theme means considering the variety of experiences within local, national and international punk communities. This conference took place against the backdrop of increased political authoritarianism and a noticeable rise in racial and religious intolerance across the world more generally, and under the guise of responses to the global pandemic more specifically. We must consider what impact these issues have – good and bad – on punk scenes and individuals. To do this together, we asked to what extent is punk a helpful means or a hindrance in considering identity and ‘being’ within wider social problems, dynamics, and understandings?
Each day in this series of Punk Scholars Network events was organised and managed by one group within the global PSN framework.
