An ethnography of contemporary traditional jazz on the streets of New Orleans

This project will research contemporary "traditional jazz" in the city of New Orleans.

Research consists of two interconnected parts. First, an ethnographic study of active musicians/audiences will focus on the influx of new musicians following Hurricane Katrina, urban displacement, gentrification, race, and tourism. Second, a digital ethnography will question the use of digital media by these musicians/audiences, and its impact on local and global communities.

The project will contribute to pressing interdisciplinary debates on music and society in the context of urban migration and growing digital ubiquity.

Sakakeeny (2020) highlights that "displacement has been central to American identity". Arguably, the most recent, visible example of this was the internal displacement following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Consequently, New Orleans has witnessed significant demographic change, with an estimated 100,000 African Americans yet to return to the city (Nowakowski 2015). This movement has not been unidirectional. Rather, the city has attracted many "transplants": city residents who were not born or living in the city before Katrina. Demographic data suggests these residents are predominantly white (The Data Center 2020). Class data is not as readily available, however, growth in the number of single, college educated residents may suggest a more professional, geographically mobile, middle-class group.

There is important discussion on the consequences of displacement and in-migration for the local community and culture (e.g. Johnson 2015; Parekh 2015). This has not included jazz bands formed from new city residents. If some new arrivals seek to limit existing local practices (Sakakeeny 2010; Parekh 2015), these (white) musicians are, in contrast, contributing to the soundscape of the city-a soundscape sonically anchoring a strategy of heritage tourism which seeks to exploit and commodify local (black) culture and obfuscate race and class inequality in favour of a...