A Sociotechnical Network Analysis of Bluegrass Practitioners and Instruments: Competing Definitions, Motivating Authenticities, and Tradition-Respecting Innovations

Abstract

This study applies a sociotechnical network analysis based on Actor Network Theory (ANT) to the bluegrass musical community. Three definitional emphases are identified within bluegrass; these emphases structure and bound the network based on instrumental practices, historical progression, or the community. The study shows how bluegrass practices, such as festivals and jams, temporarily restructure the network, creating and maintaining connections among actors. Further, the study shows how authenticity, conceptualized either as personal expression or as adherence to tradition, motivates actors toward these definitional emphases and connects to larger philosophical and cultural themes beyond bluegrass. The project also applies this network analysis to the instruments of bluegrass. It examines the banjo's history before bluegrass, showing how actors attempted to disentangle the banjo from its previous networks and place it into new musical and cultural networks, making changes both to the material instrument and to its meanings, thereby making possible the position it assumed in bluegrass. The project concludes by examining the place of vintage instruments in the bluegrass network and the need for boundary-crossing instrument makers.