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Processes of elective belonging 57

scenes in order to shift emphasis from music as local culture to music as
global, mobile culture’ (1999: 243). While there is nothing wrong with this
sort of move and indeed it clearly needs to be made, I suggest that the point is
to recognize the points made about globalization and cosmopolitanism earlier
in this chapter, earlier in this book and in the arguments in Globalization and
Belonging (Savage et al. 2005). What matters in my argument is the living out of
globalizing processes and how cosmopolitanism is patterned through particu-
lar activities. This is the basis for the critique of the rather static versions of
local community that are mounted in Globalization and Belonging. Thus, it is
important, I suggest, to emphasize the changing nature of the scenes where
elective belonging takes place. I argue later that this is one of the most specific
benefits of the concept.

Scene and narrative
A relatively neglected aspect of the concept of scene is to see that scene is a
fairly short period in the overall performance of a narrative. Thus, a scene in a
play, while it may be short or long, is only a part of the overall action. I will
develop this point further later, but at the moment comment on how this
might work with respect to the musical conceptions of scene examined so far.
Thus, while a scene may be based in one place and may take place over a period
of time, it will have limitations that need to be recognized. Some scenes will be
relatively short and specific, thus there is little talk today of a ‘Coventry’ scene,
as this was restricted to the brief period of success of two-tone music of the
late 1970s and early 1980s. By contrast, Shank’s (1994) consideration of Aus-
tin, Texas, traces the mutation of the scene over a period of time. I want to
argue that we can see these periods as points and stages in the overall evolu-
tion of how the narrative of a place is performed and audienced. Thus, it may
be best to think of this as the performance of a number of scenes over a period
of time.

Problems with scene
So far I have argued that scene is both an important concept and one that can
have purchase beyond specifically musical scenes. I will conclude the chapter
with further development of that argument. However, before I do that I
consider arguments against the idea of scene. In particular, I shall examine
the important points made by Hesmondhalgh (2005). Like other writers,
Hesmondhalgh focuses on musical scenes and in particular on the way that
scene has been used by some to theorize the links between young people and
popular music and therefore (along with other concepts such as tribe and neo-
tribe) to replace the idea of subculture. This argument is significant, but it is not
as relevant to my purposes here as Hesmondhalgh’s potentially significant
criticisms of the concept of scene itself. A core aspect of this is his argument
that ‘scene is a confusing term. It suggests a bounded place but has also been
used to refer to more complex spatial flows of musical affiliation; the two
major ways in which the term is used are incompatible with each other’ (2005:
23). Moreover, Hesmondhalgh further argues that the two major theoretical