The digital infrastructures of music scenes: Perspectives from the Global South

Abstract

The digitization process has been reshaping music scenes all over the world in diverse and ambiguous ways. Such ambiguities are all the more visible among scenes in the Global South: those scenes, and the countries they hail from, have experienced the digital in ways that often do not conform to the standards, norms, and narratives established by digitization in the Global North. By reviewing the literature on the digital infrastructures of music scenes outside of the North, this article looks as such diversity, pointing out how digital infrastructures are often marked by fragility, lag, and unequal access. This may pose the condition for Southern scenes to invent alternative scene arrangements, alternative forms of digitization, and even alternative pathways into digital modernity. At the same time, the fragility of digital infrastructures signifies the enduring dependence and structural violence suffered by the Global South at the hands of the Global North.