Whose Country Music? : Genre, Identity, and Belonging in Twenty-First-Century Country Music Culture

Participation in country music culture has long been dictated and restricted by entrenched systems of gatekeeping. This collection contests those systems and challenges the received narrative, examining contemporary issues in country music through feminist, intersectional, and post-colonialist theories.

In a period in which racism and gender inequity are at the fore of public, political, and scholarly discourse, this collection challenges systems of gatekeeping that have dictated who gets to participate in twenty-first century country music culture. Building on established scholarship, this book examines contemporary issues in country music through feminist, intersectional, and post-colonialist theories, as well as other intertextual and cultural lenses. The authors pose questions about diversity, representation, and identity as they relate to larger concepts of artist and fan communities, stylistic considerations of the genre, and modes of production from a twenty-first century perspective. Addressing and challenging the received narrative about country music culture, this collection delves into the gaps that are inherent in existing approaches that privileged biography and historiography and expands new areas of inquiry relating to contemporary country music identity and culture.