Return to the local: music-making and place in the Scottish rural creative economy

This chapter argues that one of the results of continuing globalization and digitalization of society is a return to local, place-based communities and that musical creative livelihoods in rural areas are becoming increasingly sustainable because of this movement. It uses ethnographic interview evidence from a case study in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, to discuss the relationship(s) between rural place, individual musical activity, income and sustainability to theorize the place of music in the rural creative economy now, and into the future. The chapter brings forward case studies that examine the new ubiquity of social media, models of born-digital live music-making that have emerged into the mainstream since the pandemic, and other musical activity to show how monetization of place-based capital is facilitating rural musical careers. It also suggests that rural place, has particular implications for place-based policy and practice including a more inclusive approach to music-making, greater potential for capital exchange, higher cross-sectoral potential for collaboration and crucially, different affordances for different genres of music through their historical association with rural place. The chapter concludes by suggesting that in the era of state retreat from cultural policy in the UK, that rural festivals, musicians, luthiers and educators offer some innovative models for the sustainability of musical lives that goes beyond any state-funding, in a return to more community-based practice that is being facilitated by globalization and digitalization.