Irländsk folkmusik i konserthuset. En studie av en praxisgemenskap i en ny kontext.

Sammanfattning: On the 30th-31st of January 2015 a cultural event took place at the concert and congress house of Uppsala in mid-Sweden; Uppsala Konsert & Kongress. The event was called "Irländskt!" (i.e. "Irish!") and consisted of concerts, workshops and sessions. This is a sociological study of the Irish traditional sessions at this event. The participants were studied as part of a community of practice and the aim of the study is to create an understanding of the mechanisms that are active at the social and musical meetings of the sessions as well as the effects that the new context of the concert house had on them. The two main theories used as frameworks for the analysis are Christopher Small's concept of "musicking" and Jean Lave & Etienne Wenger's theories of situated learning and legitimate peripheral participation. The empirical material was collected through the qualitative methods of unstructured interviews and participant observation. The results show that the subtle mechanisms might not be obvious for the outsider. The playing and the learning of the music are intertwined with the social rituals of the community. The participatory levels of the community members are visually mirrored in the physical space. All of the interviewees have a positive attitude towards the event. The new context of the concert house does however have effects on the structure of the session. As the conditions for sessions were not fully satisfying the community had to make an effort to adapt to the new setting. It is evident though that much has been achieved through dialogue between representatives of the concert house and the community. The study implies that research in this field might be valuable to processes of broadening programs of concert houses.