Norwegian Identity in Music: Norwegianness is the New Loud : Awakening Norwegian Musical Identity in a Globalised Era

Abstract

This thesis deals with the ostensibly downplayed, diluted national musical identity existing in this highly globalised internet epoch in which geographical origins seem obsolete. By using focus group as a research method that studies the everyday aspects of musical national identity, rather than using textual analysis to study the meaning embedded in the music per se, the relationship between national identity and music is illuminated by problematising the mundane, everyday encounters between Norwegian music and the Norwegians, and analysing the empirical data within the conceptualisation of several theoretical frameworks. The findings give us various thought-provoking perspectives to examine how the Norwegians identify their musical Norwegianness, and to inspire us to consider musical national identity as a site of complexity of the interplay of language, nation-building, musical behaviours and ideologies. Proposing a three-level model of identification and three flexible lenses to investigate musical national identity that stress the importance of language, locality and dialectical relationship between modernism and essentialism to conclude the results, this thesis aims to enlighten and broaden the current academic discussion on national musical identity.

Keywords: National musical identity, musical identity, national identity, globalisation, locality