Music and the Social Construction of Self

Abstract

Sociologists have demonstrated that people use music to construct meaning in numerous specific contexts, groups, and subcultures. This article expands such work by examining how people draw on music to construct identities in daily life beyond any specific setting. Drawing on four years of participant observation and twenty‐five in‐depth interviews, findings demonstrate three mechanisms of identity‐work as people use music in public to (1) define who they are, (2) explain how they feel because of who they are, and (3) narrate where they have been in their lives that made them who they are. These findings demonstrate how people use music in daily life to construct identities, and the theoretical potential of such exploration for sociological and music studies of public life.