Green, Katie Victoria

Independent music venues are important hubs of social activity and cultural

production around which local punk scenes are both physically and conceptually

organized. Through interactions with participants over extended periods of time, these

spaces become meaningful places that are imbued with the energy, history and memories

of local music scenes. When a venue is shut down, local punk scenes experience a

temporary disruption as participants struggle to begin the process of re-establishing a new

autonomous social space free from outsider interference. Therefore, moving from the

local, to the national, to the international, from the small and personal to the vast and

global, as well as from the physical to the virtual, this dissertation illustrates the actual,

everyday practices of local scenes across Canada, addressing the larger issue of the loss

of alternative music venues occurring on a global scale and the resulting impact on punk

scene participants. Through the use of ethnographic research methods such as participant

observation, photographic documentation, interviews and surveys, this dissertation

engages with contemporary punk scene participants in order to give voice to those often

ignored in grand narratives of punk history. As such, traditional concepts of punk as a

utopic countercultural space are challenged to reveal the complexity and diversity that

exists within contemporary local punk scenes, where participants often experience equal

amounts of cooperation, competition, tension and struggle. By choosing to engage with

contemporary experiences and interpretations of punk culture, this research addresses the

changing landscape of local scenes, as punk participants attempt to carve out spaces of

representation for themselves in an exceedingly mediated world.

Author Keywords: Canada, music venues, punk, scene, social space, subculture