Urban Music Governance: What Busking Can Teach Us about Data, Policy and Our Cities

What happens when precarious urban cultural laborers take data collection, laws, and policymaking into their own hands? Buskers have been part of our cities for hundreds of years, but they remain invisible to governments and in datasets. From nuisance to public art, this cultural practice can help us understand the politics of data collection, archives, regulatory frameworks, and urban planning. Busking also responds to underlying questions on the boundaries of the rights to the city, and who has a voice in shaping how our cities are planned and governed.

A transnational exploration of street performance, Urban Music Governance examines the intricate limits of legality, data visibility, and resistance from the perspective of those working at the social and regulatory margins of society. Based on a decade of fieldwork in Rio de Janeiro and Montreal, this book offers a lively account of why such an often-overlooked practice matters today.

By investigating the role of busking in contemporary society, Urban Music Governance presents an original interdisciplinary study that exposes how power dynamics in policymaking decide issues of access—and exclusion—around us, above and below ground.

Reia, J. (2025). Urban Music Governance: What Busking Can Teach Us about Data, Policy and Our Cities. Bristol/UK and Chicago/US: Intellect and University of Chicago Press.