Gendered Performance Performing Gender in the DIY Punk and Hardcore Music Scene

This article considers the relevance of geographical theories about gender roles and how gender is performed, to the situated context of a local DIY (‘Do It Yourself) punk scene. It draws on an auto-ethnographic study carried out by the author between September 2008 and May 2009, which explored the themes of the body, gendered performativity and gendered spatialities. The study was based on the author’s observations, reflections and conversations with other participants at live music events (‘shows’) in a particular region of the UK, but also revealed how DIY punk offers an example of an imagined community, crossing temporal, spatial and cultural boundaries with a sense of belonging and collective identity expressed by participants. The study illustrates the complexity of the relationship between punk ideologies and practices and the ways that spaces can simultaneously offer contradictory and negotiable opportunities for empowerment and resistance, acceptance and exclusion