Shared Soundscapes: Music Revivals and Identity Politics in Peru

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The present anthropological research project deals with soundscapes that emerge when local music and dance traditions are appropriated by actors such as the Peruvian state, archives, anthropologists and local communities for identity politics. It investigates processes of music revivals and identity claims with regard to contemporary negotiations between two kinds of archives (the Institute of Ethnomusicology at PUCP and the individual collection of an anthropologist) and the local communities (people claiming Muchik descent; Asháninka and Nomatsiguega indigenous peoples) of music and dance repertoires recorded mainly in the 1980s. After a period of decline, today efforts of revitalizing genres such as marinera, danza de los diablicos, tsonkari and ayahuasca songs for purposes of manifesting a culturally distinguished collective identity are underway in Eten and Túcume (Northern Coast) and in Matereni (Central Rainforest). The project’s main research question asks: How are sound legacies that had been separated from local communities for decades through anthropological collection and archiving initiated in the Global North or in Southern metropolises currently negotiated between the Peruvian state, archives, anthropologists and these communities? Based on two case studies concerning regions which to date have received little scholarly attention, and using the key concept of “shared soundscapes”, the comparative project will investigate how certain actors – among them musicians, cultural promoters and state teachers – activate the recordings of traditional music and dance to shape, experience and share soundscapes in their search for recognition as a culturally distinguished group. Its theoretical approach is at the intersection of the Anthropology of Archives and Music Patrimonialization Studies and will be applied to generate theoretical knowledge about music revivals and identity politics as crucial processes shaping national and local identities and redefining Peruvian regional hierarchy. As an innovative research methodology the project will activate archives and their materials in a collaborative way by conducting fieldwork in teams that include anthropologists and local experts as research associates on music and dance. Data will be collected based on participant observation, narrative and theme-centred interviews as well as elicitation via historical sound recordings.