Abstract

CITRO, Silvia; MENNELLI, Yanin  and  TORRES AGUERO, Soledad. "Chanting Cultural Heritage...": Indigenous Music between Global Discourses and Local Modes of Expression. Antipod. Rev. Antropol. Arqueol. [online]. 2017, n.29, pp.175-197. ISSN 1900-5407.  https://doi.org/10.7440/antipoda29.2017.08.

This article reflects on the complex mediations between global cultural policies and local cultural expressions, taking the rarely studied case of indigenous music in Argentina. We made a comparative study of two provinces in northern Argentina, Jujuy and Formosa, where the population is mostly indigenous. Our methodology combines an analysis of documentary material with the ethnographic fieldwork we did among tobas or qom musicians of Formosa and collas musicians of Jujuy between 2003-2015. We focus on two paradigmatic cases: one of the first copla songs which explicitly revolved around the notion of "heritage", recorded in 2007 by La Rodereña, El Trueno and La Imilla groups; and the "ancestral songs" of Ema Cuañeri, one of the first artists devoted to "the historical recovery of the songs of the qom people", who recorded her first CD in 2005. Our purpose is to show how the intentions of these provincial cultural expressions have been strongly influenced by global discourses which promote "multiculturalism" and the "preservation of one´s cultural heritage"; although in practice, they have also been influenced by local idiosyncrasies, among which stand out: the unpredictable nature of State cultural policies which are strongly dependent on changing political factors and clientelism; and the creative strategies of the indigenous musicians in the face of these policies, as they seek to open new spaces for performing and disseminating their music

Keywords : Heritage; multiculturalism; music; indigenous; Argentina.

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