‘It’s violence but a different kind of violence’ : how people in the Australian punk and hardcore scenes experience and define physical and sexual aggression

This dissertation examines how people perceive, define, and explain their experiences of aggression within the punk and hardcore music scenes in Australia. Taking a cultural criminology perspective, this project discusses what ‘good’ and ‘bad’ aggressive behaviours ‘look like’ in these complex music cultures and how harm is socially constructed within public concert spaces and in private. The qualitative accounts of 32 participants across four Australian states indicate that unwanted, sexually aggressive behaviours are commonplace. Sexism, rape myths and social capital are all key factors which contribute to reinforcing inequality and how participants frame ‘perpetrators’ and ‘victim-survivors’ of harmful behaviour. It is argued that aggressive behaviour within alternative music scenes is a complex personal and collective experience in which gradients of harm are either deemed unacceptable - or are encouraged—under specific social conditions. This research contributes to the broader conversation around individual and collective responses to violence and sexually aggressive behaviours in live music venues, concerts, and Australian drinking environments. This project is unique not only in centralising the grey area between pleasure and harm, but in showing how alternative music communities are not free from the influences and pressure of broader Australian cultural values.