Negotiating Hip Hop persons: Authenticity, participation and Breaking in Perth, Western Australia

Abstract

AbstractThis article draws on ethnographic research conducted in 2015 with Hip Hop dancers in Perth, as well as my own personal engagement as a Breaking practitioner, to examine how membership within the local Perth Hip Hop dance scene is made and negotiated. The focus of this article is on the processual, embodied and locally particular aspects of personhood, alhough specifically my concern is with how Hip Hop dancers themselves make sense of, experience and authenticate persons within their own specific local and social context. My ethnographic observations and discussions of the Perth Hip Hop dance scene contribute to broader anthropological debates on personhood by drawing attention to the importance of being connected and actively involved in Hip Hop dancing practices and local Hip Hop dancing events. This research illustrates how personhood in Hip Hop is something that is continually being remade and renegotiated over time and across different spaces, in addition to the significance of one's body in the negotiation process (An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2017 Australian Anthropological Society (AAS) conference at the University of Adelaide.).