Abstract

This paper examines how musician bodies, specifically, those belonging to independent musicians from Chandigarh, are subjected to a “micro-physics” of bodily control by the local nightlife economy. Through the use of Michel Foucault’s concepts, disciplinary power and docile bodies, the paper investigates how their corporeal boundaries are encroached upon, and their bodies are rendered submissive and ‘docile.’ However, Foucault asserts that despite institutional control, there appear numerous moments of confrontation between the subjected bodies and discipline that result in a momentary overturn of the power dynamics. The study begins by examining how musician bodies are transformed into docile-productive machines due to the commodifying tendencies of capitalism. However, it concludes on an optimistic note by highlighting how musicians are able to subvert control and express their creativity through the very apparatus that the local entertainment industry attempts to control – the body. The body is a site imbued with concentrated power relations, and it proves to be both a locus for power struggle and a propeller of emancipatory actions for the musicians.

Keywords body and space, Foucauldian analysis, independent musicians, creative resistance, art in neoliberal economy.