Contribution short abstract:

With this contribution, I would like to explore how the sound recordings I made as part of my ethnography in Juchitan, Mexico, in a context of increased violence, can be used to provide a different understanding of this new social and political situation.

Contribution long abstract:

In May 2024, equipped with a recorder and microphones, I returned to the southern Mexican town of Juchitán, focusing on the social and political processes at play around President AMLO's major national infrastructure project, the Transisthmian Corridor (Isthmus of Tehuántepec).

I arrived during the festive period, when parades, bandas and large velas follow one another, filling the city streets with sound. The market, like many other buildings, had collapsed in the major earthquake of 2017, and the city was also marked by the massive presence of exiles from the south of the continent, blocked on their way to Juchitán in extremely difficult conditions. I discovered a local context that had been transformed, marked by multiple forms of violence, vulnerability and insecurity.

How has this context affected the local sound scene? What has been silenced, what voices have been raised, what sonic presences have been revealed, accentuated or attenuated in this renewed context?