Martin Stokes: Music and the Over-Identity Crisis

I borrow Cheryl Herr’s diagnosis of Irish identity politics in the 1990s to reflect on the ‘music and identity’ literature and its critics. What, then, of the term ‘identity’? Does it still have insights to offer into contemporary conditions of musical production, consumption and circulation? The paper considers the use of music in some situations of desecration and violence to explore some new theoretical positions. Examples from occupied Iraq and elsewhere.