Musikstaden Borlänge : En musiketnologisk studie om hur musik kan bli betydelsefull för en stads identitet

Sammanfattning: Music can play an essential and often sensual part in the construction of a city’s identity. Borlänge, a small industrial city in Sweden has, for quite some time, been recognised as a music city. Through ethnographic fieldwork in Borlänge this research aims to come closer to how music can be studied as a part of larger collective identity and the function it brings to the social, economical and cultural activities in the city as well as the general public’s notions of a local musical identity. Drawing from perspectives of one of the leading music city-researchers, Sara Cohen, this research emphasises the symbolic construction of a city identity, the music city as term of cultural regeneration and a phenomenological view of people’s subjective meaning making in regards to the music city identity itself. In this study Borlänge makes it’s unique claim as music city in terms of producing notions of a local musical identity together with other characteristic elements of the city as well as using music as a boosting mechanism for overcoming urban narratives and to strengthen local pride and local distinctiveness in Borlänge.