If I Can't Dance at the Revolution

Or Why Social Movements Need Music?

Abstract

The text addresses the more general question of the incorporation of cultural products in social movements by focusing on the various musical forms that support protest mobilizations. Combining the so-called “framing perspective” in social movement studies with a consideration of “music as function” included in the cultural circuit (rather than “music as text”), the article identifies three variants: “the music of anger”, “music for the electorate” and “the music that keep us going”. The proposed classification is based on examples from the last twenty years in Bulgaria and does not claim to be exhaustive.

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