#AllRoadsLeadtoRoute196: Remembering a Home of Metro Manila’s Music Scene in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

The Philippines underwent one of the world’s strictest lockdowns to curb the spread of COVID-19, forcing Manila’s iconic music venue Route 196 to shut down permanently. This article inquires into the individual and collective memory-making processes in the context of Route 196’s online farewell show. Drawing on participant observation and an analysis of the show’s social media content, we examine remembering Route 196 focusing on two key processes: narrative and experience. Building on memory studies’ premise that to be made meaningful, experiences have to be narrativized (Rigney 2016), we first analyze the narrative construction of the venue as a “home” of Metro Manila’s scene, demonstrating how it variably accommodates or marginalizes individual memories. Second, we probe the role of “lived experience” (Keightley/Pickering 2012) for memory-making. We argue that social media interaction generates new experiences of the venue, which take on particular importance given the persisting absence of live music.

Original languageEnglish
JournalIASPM Journal
Volume13
Issue number3
Pages (from-to)89-113
Number of pages25
ISSN2079-3871
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 14.12.2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This paper would not have been possible without Red Ninja Productions. We thank Iris Erquiza and Corinna Naeve for assisting us with the transcriptions, and Sidney König for his valuable feedback on the first draft of this article.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Termedia Publishing House Ltd.. All rights reserved.

    Research areas

  • COVID-19, experience, memory, narrative, Philippines, social media
  • Music education