Growing up in New England, I've come to be fairly familiar with people who would describe themselves as being of Irish lineage (including myself). Yet besides a rudimentary knowledge of the patatoe famine and mass immigration in the mid-1800s to early 1900s, I feel as though I and many of those who I've met who identify themselves as "Irish" know very little about the Irish diaspora in America, particularly how in manifests itself today. For this reason, I've decided to do a small-scale ethnographic study at the Irish Cultural Centre in Canton, Massachusetts, to see how readily people consider themselves part of a contemporary Irish diaspora.
Let me back up for a moment and briefly explain how I, at an early age, came to identify myself with the Irish. I have red hair and extremely fair skin, which almost immediately has caused others to assume that I'm of Irish or Scottish descent, a recurring influence that had me seeing myself as "Irish" by the fourth grade (a belief that was partially responsible for my outstanding childhood consumption of Lucky Charms). I had a pet bloodhound named "McDoogle", a reworking of a Scottish clan's name, but a name that I thoroughly believed to be Irish when I was 10. And before I was old enough to dominate the car CD player, my mom would regularly play Chieftains records, Enya, and the soundtracks to Riverdance and Braveheart (not necessarily "authentic" Irish music, or Scottish in the case of Braveheart, but indebted to more traditional musics none-the-less). When I think about my current association with the concept of "Irish", it revolves almost entirely around all those songs I still hear in my head so many years after I've last heard them.
Every Friday and Saturday night at the Irish Cultural Centre, traditional Irish "seisiuns" (sessions) are hosted where traditional Irish music is played. I plan to attend a couple of seisiuns on back-to-back nights, the first simply to absorb the music and the crowd and the second to talk to people (inobstrusively) about why they're attending seisiun. I hope to get an idea of how people see themselves in relation to what is posed as "traditional Irish music". Is there a sense of diaspora community amongst the concert-goers? Do they feel a romanticized connection to the music of their "motherland", or do they just like the music, regardless of how they identify themselves with it? Do see themselves as Irish? Overall, I would like to come to a better understanding of how Irish music is established and viewed in New England and, though I know Canton is not in representative of New England in general, I want to see if their is a diaspora consciousness at a place where one might expect to find one: the Irish Cultural Centre.
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2 comments:
That sounds like a really interesting and accessible project, Ben. Doing an ethnographic project in a community that you're personally affiliated with is a good way to get your foot in the door (i.e. you won't have as much of the "so, why do you care about us anyway?" response); though you can expect peope to talk to you differently than they would a complete outsider and maybe assume that you know certain things that you may or may not know.
Logistically you might want to consider how many times you can reasonably get to Canton over the next month or two. If the traveling presents a problem, there are local Irish seisiuns in Providence that might work for you as well.
For a project of this size, I don't think you really need to worry about whether or not Canton is "representative" of New England or the Irish-American diaspora generally, but it's good to be thinking about how you can frame the relevent demographic facts about the area.
I agree with Shayn that this project sounds logistically doable, well-framed, and certainly very relevant to the class. You also won't have any trouble finding the extra scholarly sources for this topic -- there is quite a bit of work on Irish/Irish-American music out there. Off the top of my head, here are two articles that you might look up on JSTOR (available through Josiah): Handler & Linnekin, "Tradition, Genuine or Spurious" (deals with invented traditions/heritage issues, along similar lines as BKG's work); McCann, "All that is Not Given is Lost" (about transmission practices and authorship/ownership issues in Irish traditional music).
Going to sessions on back-to-back nights is a good idea. You will definitely want to go back there at least one other time, though. Repeat visits help demonstrate your interest in the community and will help you build rapport with the people you want to talk with. Also, you'll have to do at least one formal interview with someone, which is something you might schedule for a return trip after your initial sessions.
Your plan to talk with people in an unobtrusive way is a good one, but be sure to make it clear that this is a class project -- otherwise you are doing clandestine fieldwork, which is unethical.
We'll talk more as you proceed -- sounds like you're right on track.
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