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- Convenors:
-
Pablo D Herrera Veitia
(University of Toronto)
Carlo Cubero (Tallinn University)
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- Discussant:
-
Jim Sykes
(University of Pennsylvania)
- Formats:
- Panel Roundtable
- Stream:
- Resistance
- Sessions:
- Monday 21 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Helsinki
Short Abstract:
This panel presents a listening session and discussion on contemporary forms of resistance through music. We take our lead from musical expressions around contemporary social movements in the Caribbean and its diaspora to address, comparatively, sonically transgressive ways of knowing.
Long Abstract:
What has been the musical response to the failed promises of neoliberalism? This panel considers that in several contemporary contexts music is used as a 'sonically transgressive way of knowing' that articulates radical alternatives to the predicaments of modernity, ongoing colonialism, and emerging populist nationalism.
This panel presents a listening session and discussion of the anthropological implications of contemporary protest music. We will contextualise a selection of songs and recordings in relation to the historical backdrop of regional protest music, the emergence of new music genres, sonic responses to social anxieties, and political mobilisation. Some themes that we are interested in, but not limited to, are the musical mobilisations of contemporary transgressive movements such as Afro-Caribbean articulations of power, the #Me Too Movement, Black Lives Matter, current protests in Belarus, etc. We are interested in discussing the ways in which narratives of power associated with ethnicity, class, and gender take musical and sonic forms. We suggest that these sonic expressions of transgression present themselves in complete ethnographic form as a challenge to written ethnographic production.
We seek presentations and set-lists that consider how music goes beyond the representation of an ontology that is sonically different and strives to remap epistemological shifts in the methodologies, the politics and the poetics of our discipline.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Monday 21 June, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
In years 2016, 2018 and 2020 thousands of Polish women went on nationwide strikes to protest against the planned total ban on abortion. I will consider these protests - fight for reproductive rights, gender equality and resistance to patriarchy from the perspective of an anthropology of sound.
Paper long abstract:
I will set my ethnographic narration in the context of nationwide women's strike organized September and October 2016, March 2018 and since October 2020 by women fighting against tightening of abortion law in Poland.
I would like to focus on the performative and sound aspects of these protests. One of the biggest cities where black protests take place is Poznan. In this city, on May 2016 the Witches’ Choir came into existence. It is a collective of 20 women of various professions, ages, experience, status and worldviews. The group’s formation was inspired by the story of the first woman accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake in Poland. The Witches sing loudly and wrathfully and one of their first songs entitled “Your Power” became the anthem of the black protest that took place on October 2016 and next in 2020.
In my paper, I will take into consideration a few issues. First of all, I will try to answer the questions why the above-mentioned song of the Witches’ Choir has become a symbol of resistance to patriarchal power. Secondly, I will consider whether nationwide women's strike can generally be seen as performatively and sonically different from other manifestations and protests. If there is a difference, what roles sound and voice play in the context of publicly expressed resistance.
Paper short abstract:
This paper aims at retracing the period of the “kanak awakening” throughout a sonic pathway that leads to discover the origin of kaneka : a new musical movement risen up during the Kanak political struggles in New Caledonia.
Paper long abstract:
The original musical productions taking shape during the “cultural awakenings” of Oceania represent a brilliant example of contemporary forms of resistance and transgression through music. This paper aims at enlightening the origin of kaneka, a musical movement that took place during the Kanak independentist political claims in the 80s in New Caledonia. Through the kaneka production, an entire generation of young Kanak was finally able to express its dissent against its condition of social oppression while showing to the French people and the white settlers that they existed as community, despite 150 years of colonial segregation. The musical productions allowed them to rethink the colonial past and at the same time to imagine a new future based on the recognition of the kanak identity. In doing so, this young generation succeeded in establishing a bond with the kanak tradition while creatively integrating new cultural elements of the globalization, primarily the reggae culture. Throughout an acoustical pathway in which some emblematic tracks and recordings about this period will be presented, I will try to investigate the musical forms that the political struggle for the independence has taken.
Paper short abstract:
This presentation features a curated playlist of music produced in Puerto Rico during the "#RickyRenuncia" protests. The music produced during the protests documents a shift in the terms of Puerto Rican political activism.
Paper long abstract:
This presentation will feature a curated playlist of music that was produced in Puerto Rico during the weeks of the "#RickyRenuncia" protests and contextualise these tracks in relation to emerging trends in Puerto Rican activism.
In July 2019, over a million people participated in island-wide protests demanding the resignation of Governor Ricardo Rosselló. The protests were an immediate response to a series of scandals associated with Rossello's administration responsibility in hurricane disaster profiteering, the FBI arrest of the Secretary of Education on corruption charges, allegations of influence peddling at Puerto Rico's Department of the Treasury and at the Governor's Cabinet, mismanagement of the public debt, and a string of neo-liberal policies. These allegations were compounded by social concerns regarding long held attitudes held by the Puerto Rican elite regarding race, gender, class, and colonialism.
This playlist represents a sample of the extraordinary amount of music that was produced in support of the protest movement. My presentation will contextualise this set-list in relation to broader traditions of Puerto Rican protest music and musical responses to Puerto Rican colonialism. I argue that these tracks document and represent a shift in the terms of Puerto Rican protest music from a narrative associated with romantic-nationalist traditions to a more nuanced message that acknowledges the heterogeneous character of the Puerto Rican franchise.