‘It’s a part of me and I’m a part of it’: ecological thinking in contemporary Scottish folk music

Abstract

ABSTRACT In recent years, Scottish folk musicians have increasingly referenced and incorporated Scottish topography, place and wildlife within their music, often positioning humans as inseparable from a wider natural-cultural ecosystem. This ‘ecological thinking’ both reflects and shapes issues of locality and place in Scottish music; tropes of (Scottish) folk music as ‘close to nature’ are variously demarcated or blurred in such thinking. In addition, these folk musicians use their music to present a critical perspective on explicitly environmental and political issues, addressing in particular the historical and current relationships between ‘humans’ and ‘nature’. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with musicians and musical analysis, this article explores how two case study albums negotiate place, mythology and embedded human-nonhuman dyads with reference to the natural world. I argue that an ethics of solidarity and care underpins these musicians’ output, exploring how music can enable a reflexive and often contradictory form of ecological thinking.