Socius improvisus: young musicians, DIY careers and uncertainty in Indonesia

This paper uses a study of young musicians in Indonesia building ‘DIY’ (do-it-yourself) music careers to propose a new conceptualisation of biographical action, which we argue better reflects the realities of young lives in the Majority World (or Global South). We emphasise a form of embedded improvision that parallels but differs from the type of individual flexibility and entrepreneurial culture emphasised in influential work in youth studies on the intersection of youth cultures and employment transitions. We propose the concept of ‘socius improvisus’ to bring into focus the way the participants’ work to establish a DIY career is undertaken alongside others and taking others into account. Networks are pivotal to how our participants’ careers evolved. These networks are shaped by the shared valuing of mobility and movement while also attending to and valuing types of embeddedness in different communities. Continual improvisation alongside and taking into account others is necessary as the young musicians struggle to build, develop, and maintain their DIY careers in music and the values ‘DIY’ entails, while currently juggling other commitments in life. This might be heightened or reshaped for contemporary young people in Indonesia and also plausibly more widely than this. © 2024 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.