Nature and cultures : the natural environment in popular songs from the lower Mississippi basin (1920-1970) ; Nature et cultures : l’environnement naturel dans les chansons populaires du bassin inférieur du Mississippi (1920-1970)

The research question this dissertation seeks to answer is: “How did the communities living in the floodplains of the Lower Mississippi River Basin between 1920 and 1970 interpret and represent the natural environment of this region and their interactions with it?” The communities studied are the French-speaking community of Louisiana and the Black English-speaking community of Louisiana and Mississippi, through Creole, Cajun, and blues songs. The choice of popular songs as sources is due to the fact that these communities left very little written commentary on how they interpreted their relationship with the environment in the first half of the 20th century and that oral cultural productions were for a long time their main mode of expression. The recordings that were made by record companies and musicologists in the 20th century are therefore valuable direct evidence for researchers. The purpose of this work is to compare how individuals from different communities living in a relatively homogeneous environment evoked the environment in their songs, and to explain the commonalities and differences observed in their approach to the environment. By focusing on relationships with the environment through history, this thesis falls within the theoretical framework of Environmental History, and in particular of the History of Ideas about and representations of the natural environment. The methodology chosen places this PhD thesis within the framework of Comparative History and has also borrowed tools from Sociology and Anthropology. Finally, due to the medium chosen for this study, this research also falls within the scope of Cultural History and the Study of Popular Music. The results obtained from the comparison of 745 songs reveal common points, but also major differences in the way artists from the communities studied described their environment and their relationship with it before 1945. Whereas more than 60 % of blues songs mention the environment, often with great precision, about 25 % of French-speaking songs ...