Visibility, Gender and Pop Music. A theoretical transfer of critical concepts of visibility and recognition from visual to auditory culture.

This article was awarded the Early Career Best Paper Award 2020

Abstract

Visibility and recognition are ambiguous constructs embedded in hegemonic power structures, which need closer examination in order to envision new forms of representation. This contribution explores in which ways female* musicians become visible and what the contexts of their visibility are. It analyzes and problematizes dominant politics of representation that produce mechanisms of exclusion and difference in popular music. Consequently, it draws attention to the complex structures that emerge between seeing, being seen, and the practices of making visible.
Finally, concepts of visibility and recognition from critical research on visual cultures and philosophy of justice are applied to the field of popular music research. It is shown that an increased visibility of marginalized subjects in music related fields does not necessarily lead to better conditions for them. Thus, the framework of visibility would do well to take a fundamentally feminist and anti-racist orientation in order to make new representations of better conditions comprehensible.