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The Cultural Imagination and Its Role in Researching Popular Music

image of The Cultural Imagination and Its Role in Researching Popular Music
  • By Eleftherios Zenerian
  • Source: The Intellect Handbook of Popular Music Methodologies , pp 96-107
  • Publication Date: June 2025
  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1386/9781835951033_8
  • Language: English
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The methodological approach for studying popular music proposed in this chapter is situated in the cultural studies tradition. I use the term “cultural imagination” to refer to the cultural competences possessed by researchers who participate in music fandoms/music cultures. The cultural imagination, I propose, can be a valuable methodological tool for conducting in-depth single case-study investigations. The cultural imagination allows researchers to deploy their own knowledge of music culture to devise qualitative interviewing methods for eliciting (musical) cultural experiences and writing about them, processes traditionally referred to as data collection and data analysis. By tapping into their own experiences, researchers can find unique ways to connect with their research participants, and encourage the opening of experiential territories that would be otherwise inaccessible, as well as accessing clandestine subcultural discourses to make sense of seemingly disparate pieces of information. Most importantly, the cultural imagination encourages a type of knowledge production where the researcher uses self-reflexivity, both to critically evaluate the type of knowledge they produce and to reflect on their own understandings of music culture. In that sense, the research process is dialectical, and the outcome is knowledge produced about the research participant and the researcher

Keywords: Cultural studies ; Methodology ; Music fandom ; Popular culture ; Qualitative interviews

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References

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     [Google Scholar]
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  12. Foucault, M. ([1969] 1974), The Archaeology of Knowledge, London: Tavistock Publications.
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  25. Mills, C. W. ([1959] 2000), The Sociological Imagination, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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