The dissolution of the state socialist project in Yugoslavia has not only profoundly reshaped the multiethnic notion of “our music” toward the ethno-national musical selves, but has also transformed the understanding of “our” in terms of material resources for musing making. This paper investigates the "tragedy of the (musical) commons" (Hardin 1968) from the (post-)socialist perspective that put forward the processes of socialization of the means of production. My case study focuses on the Yugoslav Railway, which was a significant enterprise in facilitating new forms of collective musical activities following World War II through an extensive network of railway culture associations across Yugoslav urban centres. These societies served as crucial conduits for musical exchange and community development based on a form of social ownership central to Yugoslav self-management. I explore how activities grounded in the principles of the musical commons—encompassing access to musical instruments, rehearsal spaces, and the production and transmission of musical knowledge—enhanced individuals' capacities to practice the ideas of social equality. This process contributed to the destabilization of class and urban/rural divisions, as well as the dichotomies between state and citizens, professional and amateur musicians, and various music genres, including classical, popular, and folk. Furthermore, I discuss how the historical project of Yugoslav socialism, which reinforced social ownership of the means of musical production, can inform our contemporary understanding of the politics of musical commons as a formative element of the emancipatory subject engaged in the struggle against class-based social fragmentation.

This paper examines the intersection of Romani musical traditions and the commons by focusing on the historical transformation of ownership structures and modes of production in socialist and post-socialist Romania. By analyzing the extraction of Romani musics within the framework of the socialist culture industry, I explore how state-regulated, collectivist infrastructures shaped musical performance, transmission, and listening practices, and how these practices were later supplanted by market-oriented, privatized models. This shift not only redefined the musical landscape but also disrupted traditional ways in which cultural resources were shared and maintained within communities. Building on José Esteban Muñoz’s (2019) concept of the “Brown commons,” I argue that Romani musicians actively navigated and subverted these systemic changes through embodied knowledge and performance. Their practices offered subtle yet potent forms of resistance against both state control and subsequent neoliberal commodification. Drawing on Moten’s (2003) notion of fugitivity, I position Romani music-making as a practice of resilience that sustains communal sonic spaces, despite extensive cultural extraction and erasure. In doing so, I highlight how these embodied practices challenge dominant epistemologies and state-imposed logics of ownership, calling into question established definitions of authenticity and value. Ultimately, this paper contributes to a broader ethnomusicological inquiry into music as a social and public good, urging a reconsideration of the complex interrelations between music, ownership, and communal identity.

Drawing on examples from the People’s Republic of China, this paper identifies a distinctive nexus of infrastructures, politics and expectations concerning collective interests and what can be deemed “the cultural commons.” Building on Wang (1997, 2001) I argue that one measure of the extension of the state’s “indifference zone” has been precisely the vitality and variety of leisure activities. But, in a process that continues in an era of ubiquitous digital culture, the capacity of the “state capitalist” political-economic system to affect the agenda of popular culture, especially at the discursive level, has, if anything, been rejuvenated. I contend that ideas and practices related to music and the commons persist but are also contested against a backdrop of hyper-consumerism, newly pressured leisure routines and the shattering of some forms of musical authority through the emergence of digital knowledge practices. Of interest to wider ethnomusicological debates are both bottom-up subcultural attributions of ownership and excellence by “hidden musicians,” and the top-down focus of cultural patronage that I term “musicking like a state.” In the PRC, both these vectors may function as a “redemption of the mundane” (Biancorosso 2004), a sort of societal-level positioning gesture validating the amateur musical tastes and moral unassailability of particular demographics. But what kind of music-making and whose knowledge is valued, and by whom? What contradictions arise when governmental arts policy meets long-held grassroots practices of self-cultivation, auto-didacticism, and local expressions of musical citizenship?

Discussion