Music scene as sonic culture. Neighborhood music events in Marseille city center
Résumé
This article attempts to question the social existence of an urban culture through an ecological approach, based on the description of the modalities of collective commitments into La Plaine’s music scene in Marseille city center. The living neighborhood of La Plaine’s can be performed as a frontier-place, a divided cultural space that crystallizes a struggle in the local public space. Since it combines distinct cultures – sets of frames of participation and habits, definitions and evaluations of the place and of objects – this urban area appears as a space for confrontation. Since the primary social group whose presence to live music events is intentional, agrees on the definition of sounds as music, all the other people physically present in the immediate environment - the “bystanders” (Goffman) - are potentially likely to define sounds produced by live music activities as noise. The study of some conflict situations against a background of “noise” within an “ecological and social stability” highlights as much challenges to a certain Order of hearing. Theses challenging situations unfold an intrigue and call for a resolution when local public problems emerge.