Lexington Books Decentering the Nation: Music, Mexicanidad, and Globalization (Music, Culture, and Identity in Latin America)

This book considers how global capitalism has upset the symbolic economy of "Mexican" cultural discourse. It focuses on the cultural processes through which people contest ideas about race, gender, and sexuality; reframe ideas of memory, history, and belonging; and negotiate the experiences of dislocation that affect them. Review This fascinating volume explores how music enables the definition of national and community-based identities, while at the same time its unstoppable flow makes it cross borders constantly. Nothing can stop the migration of sounds that express emotions intimately woven into identities produced in new territories. The authors in this volume address such paradox by examining different musical expressions of mexicanidad, a type of mexicanidad traversed by sounds that have migrated - such as cumbia or rumba - and which confronts a decentering of the nation. Thus, this original and provocative book approaches sonic spaces in terms of what I would call aural auras (to echo Walter Benjamin's idea): spaces that wrap identities in specific social contexts. Mexicanidad has an aural aura that changes, breaks, or disappears, and it is analyzed from very diverse perspectives in this book.--Roger Bartra, Emeritus Researcher, National Autonomous University This unique collective work explores the dialectic between national self-assertion and its subversion, through a remarkable range of situated musical practices. Its authors are committed both to ethnographic and theoretical engagement, even as they invite readers to familiarize themselves with the rich and varied soundscapes that are reshaping the very idea of "Mexican identity" today.--Claudio Lomnitz, Columbia University About the Author Jesús A. Ramos-Kittrell is assistant professor in residence of ethnomusicology and music history at the University of Connecticut.