ABSTRACT
Like any form of communication, music reflects a range of political and social ideologies and commentaries. In this chapter, musical authorship, performance, consumption and interaction are seen as potentially powerful activities of resistance to harmful state and corporate activities. The analysis is based on an ongoing ethnographic, auto-ethnographic, participant observation and interview research project with politically radical punk rock musicians in the United States (US), Canada and the United Kingdom (UK). Specifically, I explore the extent to which music constructions provide windows for collective opposition and resistance to forms of state crime and violence, such as war, human rights abuses, oppression, state-corporate collusion and corruption. The analysis raises questions about the utility of music as a tool of resistance but also identifies several ways in which it can be effective in developing critical consciousness and social action. The chapter concludes by presenting five general premises on the relationship between music and resistance to state crime and violence.
