Abstract

Busking has a long history in Asheville, North Carolina, and a large influence on its tourism, artistic culture, and cityscape. In recent years, the city’s rapid gentrification has blurred the lines between public and private spaces and raised the cost of living so significantly that it has driven out many of the artists who made the city what it is today. This leaves significantly less space for buskers to perform, and, under the guise of middle class safety, creates a false narrative of danger and need to control public spaces, including limited access for buskers and other public forms of art. Through this research, I examine cultural prejudices against unhoused people, panhandlers, buskers, and others living alternative lifestyles, and how this, in turn, influences gentrification and privatization. My research also identifies commodification of art as a means of repurposing artists’ ideas and works for companies to profit from, and in turn, further gentrifies the cities housing them. This presentation, based on several months of interviews with buskers and pedestrians,  participant observation, and my own busking experience, evaluates busking culture in Asheville as a protest against processes of gentrification, privatization of space, and commodification of art. The research builds on existing research  into the distinctions between public and private space, particularly in the context of rapid gentrification and privatization, and considers busking as an everyday form of resistance (Scott 1989). 

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