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Delight in the cultural aspects of Latin America by observing the objects that give life to history Latin American Cultural Objects and Episodesprovides readers with an eclectic and fascinating exploration of Latin American history through the examination of physical objects. Distinguished author and Professor William H. Beezley takes readers on a journey that includes objects used music and visual media, such as movies, documentaries, and television. Forming an integral part of the history they represent, the objects described in this book tell the tale of the little known or neglected part of Latin American history. While most historical authors and researchers focus on the political and e...
Music has been critical to national identity in Latin America, especially since the worldwide emphasis on nations and cultural identity that followed World War I. Unlike European countries with unified ethnic populations, Latin American nations claimed blended ethnicities--indigenous, Caucasian, African, and Asian--and the process of national stereotyping that began in the 1920s drew on themes of indigenous and African cultures. Composers and performers drew on the folklore and heritage of ethnic and immigrant groups in different nations to produce what became the music representative of different countries. Mexico became the nation of mariachi bands, Argentina the land of the tango, Brazil the country of Samba, and Cuba the island of Afro-Cuban rhythms, including the rhumba. The essays collected here offer a useful introduction to the twin themes of music and national identity and melodies and ethnic identification. The contributors examine a variety of countries where powerful historical movements were shaped intentionally by music.
Dedicated to the late Gerard Béhague (1937-2005), whose pioneering work in Latin American music, popular culture, and performance studies contributed extensively to ethnomusicological discourse in the 1970s-1990s, this anthology offers comparative perspectives on the evolving legacy of performance ethnography in socio-musical analysis. President of the Society for Ethnomusicology from 1979-81, editor of its journal, Ethnomusicology, from 1974-78, and founder and editor of the trilingual Latin American Music Review from 1980 until his death, Béhague also established the ethnomusicology graduate program at the University of Texas at Austin in 1974, thereby influencing the training and thinki...
The South American country of Ecuador provides a fascinating case study for understanding the construction and emergence of race and ethnic identities. While themes of ethnic identities, indigeneity, and race relations are commonly examined in our respective disciplines, it is less common to bring together essays with from scholars from such a broad variety of disciplines. The papers collected in this volume provide an opportunity to explore indigeneity in comparative perspective with the rest of the region, as well as to highlight the historically important but understudied Afro-Ecuadorian perspectives. The essays in this volume break out of the common tropes and themes that scholars typically employ in their studies of race and ethnicity in Ecuador. In examining Afro-Ecuadorians and Indigenous peoples through the lens of politics, culture, religion, gender, and environmental concerns, we come to a better understanding of the problems and promises facing this country. These essays convey a large diversity of perspectives, disciplines, and issues that reflect the richness and complexities of the social processes that are present in Ecuador.
The Latin American centennial celebrations of independence (ca.1909-1925) constituted a key moment in the consolidation of national symbols and emblems, while also producing a renewed focus on transnational affinities that generated a series of discourses about continental unity. At the same time, a boom in archaeological explorations, within a general climate of scientific positivism provided Latin Americans with new information about their grandiose former civilizations, such as the Inca and the Aztec, which some argued were comparable to ancient Greek and Egyptian cultures. These discourses were at first political, before transitioning to the cultural sphere. As a result, artists and part...
The ethnically and geographically heterogeneous countries that comprise Latin America have each produced music in unique styles and genres - but how and why have these disparate musical streams come to fall under the single category of "Latin American music"? Reconstructing how this category came to be, author Pablo Palomino tells the dynamic history of the modernization of musical practices in Latin America. He focuses on the intellectual, commercial, musicological, and diplomatic actors that spurred these changes in the region between the 1920s and the 1960s, offering a transnational story based on primary sources from countries in and outside of Latin America. The Invention of Latin Ameri...
Why do Japanese people love tango? Starting with this question, which the author frequently received while working as a tango violinist in Argentina, Tango in Japan reveals histories and ethnographies of tango in Japan dating back to its first introduction in the 1910s to the present day. While initially brought to Yokohama by North American tango dancers in 1914, tango’s immediate popularity in Japan quickly compelled many Japanese performers and writers to travel to Argentina in search of tango’s “origin” beginning in the 1920s. Many Japanese musicians, dancers, aficionados, and the wider public have, since then, approached tango as a new vehicle of expression, entertainment, and a...
This book examines ritual practices and public festivals in the Otavalo and Cotacachi areas of northern Andean Ecuador's Imbabura province. Otavaleños are a unique group in that they maintain their traditional identity but also cultivate a cosmopolitanism through frequent international travel. Ritual Encountersexplores the moral, mythic, and modern crossroads at which Otavaleños stand, and how, at this junction, they come to define themselves as millennial people. Michelle Wibbelsman shows that Otavaleños are deeply engaged in transnational mobility and in the cultural transformations that have resulted from Otavalan participation in global markets, international consumer trends, and tech...
Made in Latin America serves as a comprehensive introduction to the history, sociology, and musicology of contemporary Latin American popular music. Each essay, written by a leading scholar of Latin American music, covers the major figures, styles, and social contexts of popular music in Latin America and provides adequate context so readers understand why the figure or genre under discussion is of lasting significance. The book first presents a general description of the history and background of popular music, followed by essays organized into thematic sections: Theoretical Issues; Transnational Scenes; Local and National Scenes; Class, Identity, and Politics; and Gendered Scenes.
The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music Volume 9 is one of six volumes within the 'Genre' strand of the series. This volume discusses the genres of the Caribbean and Latin America relation to their cultural, historical and geographic origins; technical musical characteristics; instrumentation and use of voice; lyrics and language; typical features of performance and presentation; historical development and paths and modes of dissemination; influence of technology, the music industry and political and economic circumstances; changing stylistic features; notable and influential performers; and relationships to other genres and sub-genres. This volume features over 300 in-depth essays on genres ranging from Afro-Cuban Jazz to Alcatraz, from Carnaval to Charanga, and from Dancehall to Dub.