Music as a technology of the self

The question of music's social effects has a venerable tradition within social theory but has rarely been explored through empirical and ethnographic work. Drawing on 52 depth interviews with women between the ages of 18 and 78 in small towns and urban metropolitan areas in the USA and UK, this study shows how music ‘gets into’ or provides a medium for forms of social agency. Focus is directed to respondents' mundane music consumption, in...