The Pedagogy of Gear Touchers: Unearthing Modes of Teaching Within and Through DIY Venues

A new article from Dr Peter Woods asks how do DIY music venues shape the pedagogical practices of DIY music scenes and in what ways do those pedagogies align with the ideological and ethical aims of these communities?

Background

Within the body of literature on do-it-yourself (DIY) music scenes, researchers have routinely placed an emphasis on the role of material space in shaping the sociocultural and musical practices of punk music and other related genres. Scholars have also examined the teaching and learning processes of these musical subcultures under the banner of “punk pedagogy” scholarship. However, investigations into the intersection between these two strands of research need to occur because theories of punk pedagogy have largely overlooked the role of physical space within the educative practices of DIY music. Research into the thematically related space of the maker movement amplifies this need, because maker education scholars have repeatedly shown the multiple ways that materials and space shape how individuals learn through DIY production.