"Why Do We Honk? How Do We Honk?: Politics, Antipolitics, and Activist Street Bands"
Rosza Daniel Lang/Levitsky and Michele Hardesty
"Why Do We Honk? How Do We Honk?: Politics, Antipolitics, and Activist Street Bands" is an assessment of where and how concrete involvement in justice movement work has been part of Somerville's HONK! Festival. It examines the patterns of practice established by the festival's official programming (both public events and those for participating musicians) over HONK!’s first dozen years. The chapter's analysis traces the tensions between activities of a segment of bands who understand justice work as contestation, and the activities of festival organizers who have aimed to create spaces of balanced participation while minimizing conflict. HONK!, so far, has leaned towards an approach that is “antipolitical,” a term developed by East European dissident intellectuals during the 1970s and '80s who claimed that change was possible with voluntary participation and social engagement in "civil society,” rather than with conflict or confrontation. By taking an antipolitical approach, the festival has limited the impact of justice movement involvement even where it has welcomed it. The chapter suggests how the festival could change its practices to embrace participation in movements for justice, during a period when antipolitical practices have frequently supplanted active resistance in gentrifying U.S. cities.
Rosza Daniel Lang-Levitsky is an organizer and cultural worker who dances with the Rude Mechanical Orchestra (NYC radical brass), sings with Koyt Far Dayn Fardakht (Yiddish anarchist punk rock), organizes for the abolition of the prison/police/court system with Survived & Punished NY and for decolonization with Jewish Voice for Peace, writes whenever possible, and identifies with, not as.
Michele Hardesty has drummed (on and off) with the Rude Mechanical Orchestra (NYC) since its founding in 2004. She archives movement culture as a volunteer at Interference Archive in Brooklyn, NY, and is an Associate Professor of US Literatures & Cultural Studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA.
Rosza Daniel Lang/Levitsky and Michele Hardesty
"Why Do We Honk? How Do We Honk?: Politics, Antipolitics, and Activist Street Bands" is an assessment of where and how concrete involvement in justice movement work has been part of Somerville's HONK! Festival. It examines the patterns of practice established by the festival's official programming (both public events and those for participating musicians) over HONK!’s first dozen years. The chapter's analysis traces the tensions between activities of a segment of bands who understand justice work as contestation, and the activities of festival organizers who have aimed to create spaces of balanced participation while minimizing conflict. HONK!, so far, has leaned towards an approach that is “antipolitical,” a term developed by East European dissident intellectuals during the 1970s and '80s who claimed that change was possible with voluntary participation and social engagement in "civil society,” rather than with conflict or confrontation. By taking an antipolitical approach, the festival has limited the impact of justice movement involvement even where it has welcomed it. The chapter suggests how the festival could change its practices to embrace participation in movements for justice, during a period when antipolitical practices have frequently supplanted active resistance in gentrifying U.S. cities.
Rosza Daniel Lang-Levitsky is an organizer and cultural worker who dances with the Rude Mechanical Orchestra (NYC radical brass), sings with Koyt Far Dayn Fardakht (Yiddish anarchist punk rock), organizes for the abolition of the prison/police/court system with Survived & Punished NY and for decolonization with Jewish Voice for Peace, writes whenever possible, and identifies with, not as.
Michele Hardesty has drummed (on and off) with the Rude Mechanical Orchestra (NYC) since its founding in 2004. She archives movement culture as a volunteer at Interference Archive in Brooklyn, NY, and is an Associate Professor of US Literatures & Cultural Studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA.
