Performing Identity Through Language: The Local Practices of Urban Youth Populations in Post-Socialist Mongolia

Drawing on contemporary transgressive theoretical approaches, this paper examines how modern urban youth populations perform new identities by manipulating 'global?local' cultural and linguistic resources available to them such as popular culture flows. In its search for a post-Socialist identity, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, urban settings in Mongolia have been largely caught between the emerging transcultural flows. Young urban Mongolians have been participating in these current dynamic global interactions in multiple ways, while locating and styling their new identities within fluid spaces such as popular music. The linguistic practice of popular music in this regard is the main site for the exploration of the new identities performed by the urban youth population both as producers and consumers. It is the most dynamic and expressive space for urban youth to play, perform and negotiate within their identities.