[Commlist] Authenticity and Belonging in the Northern Soul Scene – new publication (Palgrave Macmillan)

*Authenticity and Belonging in the Northern Soul Scene*

*The role of history and identity in a multigenerational music culture*

*Dr Sarah Raine, Edinburgh Napier University*


*Available as both a hardback and an ebook via 
**https://bit.ly/northernsoulbook***

"A record sounds out across the room. The one I have been waiting for 
but couldn’t predict. It moves me to move, from my seat into a space, 
and I become part of the motion on and off the dance floor. Weaving in 
and out of the dancers already in place, I find a space of my own, not 
too close to the sides and away from those who flail or aggressively 
expand their area. It’s a fast record, so I begin with simple steps on 
every other beat. Smooth and capable, if not the eye-catching 
performance of the most competent dancers: a debut performance for this 
particular audience. And it works. Those around me move into the 
in-between spaces, a harmonious ebb and flow of step and slide, a 
relationship of movement that binds me into a kaleidoscope for those on 
the balcony above. My claim to the space of the dance floor accepted by 
those dancing around me, the five years spent dancing, watching, 
practising in quiet moments channelled into a public demonstration of 
belonging."

Review copies can be requested here 
<https://www.palgrave.com/gp/media-centre/book-review-process/review-copies>.

/Authenticity and Belonging in the Northern Soul Scene/ is the latest 
publication in the Palgrave Macmillan series Palgrave Studies in the 
History of Subcultures and Popular Music, edited by Keith Gildart, Anna 
Gough-Yates, Siân Lincoln, Bill Osgerby, Lucy Robinson, John Street, 
Peter Webb and Matthew Worley of the Subcultures Network.

"Participating in the northern soul scene is more about the ritual of 
placing a bag on the floor at an event than it is about the north of 
England, spectacular acrobatics or excessive drug use. As we shall see, 
these northern soul geographies and practices (amongst others) have 
become central to the dominant narratives of northern soul. They are 
also central to ways in which researchers have come to define northern 
soul experience and history. In the pages that follow, I demonstrate 
that these narratives have become a discursive tool in claiming to 
belong. What people do and say on the northern soul are acts of claiming 
space. The strict etiquette of the dance floor, and the dominant ways in 
which dance performances are valued, do not mean that ‘soulies dance in 
the same manner to this song as they have always done’ (as Smith 
argues), but rather that these rules and notions of ‘tradition’ make 
meaningful certain actions and narratives. These dominant ways of doing 
and saying northern soul work to keep certain people out and to maintain 
the claims and the space of others.

"I am interested in the ways in which people within multigenerational 
music scenes claim to be members, particularly those who do not fit 
within the discursive boundaries of the ‘true’ insider. Through an 
immersive ethnography, this book therefore explores these issues of 
generational claims among northern soul participants, primarily focusing 
on the experiences of women and men aged 18–32. As the title suggests, 
this book is about notions of authenticity and belonging, identity and 
history."


*Recommendations*

//

/Northern soul has become the subject of an impressive representational 
and investigative economy – incorporating insider accounts from DJs and 
from those who danced the sprung floor of Wigan Casino, contribute to 
online community archives, create fiction and documentary film, 
accompanied by an expanding array of scholarly studies.///

/‘Outsiders’ might be forgiven for thinking that, like the music itself, 
this material all sounds out the same beat in terms of its uncritical, 
familiar narratives and male-dominated perspective. It is refreshing, 
then, to hear Sarah Raine’s singular voice and to understand the 
diversity of the ‘scene’ and its meanings through her eyes as one that 
endures through its debt to roots in 1970s northern English dancehalls, 
and changes and renews itself by enlisting new generations and 
communities across the globe./

/Raine’s creative and engaging prose conveys the originality and 
attentiveness of her participant observation, often researching through 
dance. She brings to life the meaning and value of authenticity as 
participants claim a place in northern soul through rituals and public 
performances, between the dancefloor and its periphery, embodied in the 
passions and power dynamics of this music-focused community. /

/This is a significant and original contribution to the study of 
subcultures and popular music, methodologically rich and empathetically 
‘four on the floor’, spinning, high-kicking and dusted with talcum 
powder. Now then, ‘On her way to work one morning/Down the path 
alongside the lake…’/

*Paul Long, Professor of **Creative and Cultural Industries, Monash 
University*


/Authenticity and Belonging in the Northern Soul Scene is a vibrant and 
vigorous exploration of that very specific dance between the past and 
the present, and its complicated choreography from bars to record 
stalls, from dance floors to more virtual spaces./

/In these pages Sarah Raine surveys the boundaries of the contemporary 
northern soul scene as both insider and observer, all the while painting 
a picture of a new generation of northern soulies who are staking claims 
to their own space on the floor. /

*Sarah Hill, Senior Lecturer in Popular Music, Cardiff University***


With thanks to Professor Tim Wall and Professor Nick Gebhardt who 
supported this research and to the team at Palgrave Macmillan, in 
particular Series Editors Professor Matt Worley, Professor Lucy Robinson 
and Professor Keith Gildart.

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