Yorkshire’s folk culture in digital spaces during the COVID-19 pandemic : cultural practice, digitalisation and localisation

Sewell, Charles Tennyson

Abstract

This thesis critically assesses the digital spaces where Yorkshire’s folk community practiced sonic and material cultures and developed identities of communal belonging during the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using data gathered throughout the UK’s first national ‘lockdown’ in 2020, it examines how a social group previously reliant on physical space and face-to-face community began to use digital spaces in a period of rapid cultural shift. By doing so, it reflects on the process of enacting folk culture in digital spaces, and the extent to which these spaces can nurture localised and collective perceptions of being part of a balanced, tightknit and tangible folk community.
Defining the term ‘folk’ as established, localised and grassroots cultural practices, with emphasis on sound (folk music and voice), visual (text and artworks) and material (craft), this thesis is positioned between the established field of folk geographies and emerging studies into digital geographies. It aims to revitalise folk geographies by modernising research into the spatial variations of localised cultures within developing digital worlds, such as social media. In order to explore these issues, the research used an experimental multimethodology including (online) ethnography, art-elicitation and interviews within social media groups with strong connections to Yorkshire folk culture. This enabled the thesis to present an empathic but critical narrative of the Yorkshire folk community’s cultural shift to digital spaces, based on researcher and participant experiences and the expressions represented through various sonic, visual and material digital artforms.
The thesis makes three key arguments. Firstly, that there are spatial frictions between physical spaces and emerging digital spaces as cultural practices are digitally reproduced, and that these frictions are powerful enough to reshape spaces of folk culture. Secondly, that the COVID-19 pandemic created unique digital geographies, which encouraged experimental practices of culture and redesigned cultural groups by placing new importance on online identities. Thirdly, that tensions between different geographical scales (the local to the global) developed as Yorkshire’s folk culture was digitally reproduced, with both productive and destructive consequences for folk communities. Collectively, the frictions, experimentations and tensions related to digital spaces substantially restructured and drove the practices of small-scale cultures into alternative networks of access, control, inclusion, intimacy, heterogeneity and hybridity.

Citation

Sewell, C. T. (2021). Yorkshire’s folk culture in digital spaces during the COVID-19 pandemic : cultural practice, digitalisation and localisation. (Thesis). University of Hull. Retrieved from https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4224009

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Mar 11, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 24, 2023
• Keywords: Geography
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4224009
• Additional Information: Department of Geography, Geology and Environment, The University of Hull
• Award Date: Oct 1, 2021