Hip Hop Ecologies
Guest Editors: Alain-Philippe Durand (University of Arizona) and Timo Müller (University of Konstanz)
Hip-hop is one of the most successful forms of global cultural production today. Since its emergence in the Bronx neighborhood of New York City, it has spread around the world and exerted a considerable impact not only on pop culture, but also on social debates around race, class, language, nationality, gender, and a range of other issues. One topic that is rarely
discussed, however, is the relationship between hip-hop and the environment.
As a predominantly urban phenomenon, hip-hop does not pursue an environmentalist agenda in any narrow sense. Its focus is traditionally on urban rather than natural life, on the city rather than the countryside. Nevertheless, an environmental perspective on hip-hop promises to enrich our understanding of the ways in which popular cultural forms shape and are shaped by environmental concerns. Such an approach can direct our attention to important dimensions of hip-hop that have remained marginal to public and scholarly debates. Conversely, hip-hop offers unconventional vistas that challenge narrow conceptions of the environment and its academic study. We invite contributions that explore, substantialize, and challenge these premises in all areas of hip-hop culture (rap music, emceeing, deejaying, breakdancing/b-boying, graffiti). Topics might include but are not limited to:
– depictions and negotiations of nature in hip-hop
– environmentalist messages in hip-hop
– hip-hop conceptions of (urban) space in environmental terms
– hip-hop and ecology
– rural hip-hop and its environmental investments
– material environments of hip-hop production and reception
– environmentally aware or embedded hip-hop cultures
– hip-hop in/and environmental activism
– environmental framings in debates around hip-hop
– hip-hop and the posthuman
– hip-hop and the natural sciences
– the land(s) of hip-hop
Ecozon@ is a multilingual journal. We invite contributions in English, French, German, or Spanish that discuss hip hop cultures in any geographic or linguistic setting. Manuscripts should be between 6,000 and 8,000 words including abstract, keywords, and bibliography.
We highly encourage potential contributors to submit an abstract by e-mail before March 2021 to either editor: Alain-Philippe Durand (adurand@arizona.edu) or Timo Müller, (timo.mueller@uni-konstanz.de). Completed manuscripts are due on July 15, 2021 via the Ecozon@ website, which also provides a style guide.