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Humming posthuman belonging: Circulating sounds as memetic citizenship practices in online music cultures
Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Humanities and Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts, Department of Musicology.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-1505-4357
2026 (English)In: Seismograf, ISSN 2245-4705Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Sonic articulations of belonging, formations of publics, and cultural citizenship practices are increasingly mediated by the algorithmic platforms and participatory practices shaping twenty-first-century music cultures. This is highlighted by the video platform TikTok, where sound and music structure memetic processes of meaning-making that bridge the boundaries between between cultural and political participation, becoming informal citizenship practices. Engaging this space, this article analyzes the wide recirculation of “Kitchen Fan Lullaby”, an audio track that captures a young woman harmonizing with her kitchen fan and has been repurposed in over three hundred thousand videos centering young women’s reflections on grief and (non)belonging. The paper initially positions these practices against the backdrop of public and (bio)political constructions of girls and young women as populations at risk of experiencing mental health conditions, sexual abuse, and gender-based violence and argues that these frameworks render informal media practices matters of transnational female citizenship. Bringing together feminist, sensory, and posthuman theorizations of citizenship, the analysis shows that the audio track’s sonic qualities facilitate an opening toward memetic reflections on belonging—with technology, humans, and non-human others—that bear relevance for questions of gender and citizenship. In closing, the paper considers how the visibility of informal feminist internet citizenship practices on TikTok is conditioned by the platform’s sociotechnical affordances and people’s divergent and strategic engagements with them, and maps onto the unequal vulnerabilities, rights, and citizenship status of women globally.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2026.
Keywords [en]
Algorithmic platforms; memetic culture; cultural citizenship; feminist activism; critical posthumanism
National Category
Musicology
Research subject
Musicology; Media and Communication Studies; Gender Studies
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-594890DOI: 10.48233/90OAI: oai:DiVA.org:uu-594890DiVA, id: diva2:2089361
Part of project
Mental health, affect, and gender in young women’s digital music and media practices, Swedish Research Council
Funder
Swedish Research CouncilAvailable from: 2026-08-03 Created: 2026-08-03 Last updated: 2026-08-03

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Publisher's full texthttps://seismograf.org/da/peer/humming-posthuman-belonging#toc-doi

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Muchitsch, Veronika

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CiteExportLink to record
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  • apa
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