Independent music in Ecuador: Mestizaje, resistance and alternative media from the Global South
Morejón, Juan Pablo Viteri (2022) Independent music in Ecuador: Mestizaje, resistance and alternative media from the Global South. Doctoral thesis, Birmingham City University.
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Juan Pablo Viteri Morejón_PhD Thesis_Final Version_Submitted Oct 2021_Final Award Apr 2022.pdf - Accepted Version Download (2MB) |
Abstract
The terminology "Ecuadorian independent music" refers to versions of rock, pop, hip-hop, and electronic music produced in Ecuador. Considering these styles emerged in Anglo-European geographies – mainly the US and the UK – they have travelled the world and, in the process, have been integrated into the culture of multiple locations. Through an ethnographic study, I dig into the meanings of these independent music cultures and demonstrate how they have reacted against the hegemonic cultural logics of the country, the region, and the world.
Latin America and Ecuador have a mixed ethnic heritage, a major cultural determinant regionally referred to as mestizaje. Despite the increasing expansion of homogenising and eurocentric globalisation, mestizaje has remained a distinctive aspect of Latin American national idiosyncrasies. However, mestizaje has historically reflected and served a colonial ethos. That is a hierarchical and abusive relationship that has privileged the European over the mixed, indigenous, and black. In this context, this thesis focuses on how independent music cultures have fostered a mestizaje that celebrates and embraces the mixed, indigenous, and African through the music and its performance. In other words, in this thesis, I navigate the paradox of Anglo-European popular music entering a country like Ecuador to enable reconnections with the country's neglected and oppressed cultural heritages.
Nonetheless, Ecuadorian independent music is a peripheral scene that has struggled to subsist and thrive due to the precarious, repressive, and peripheral conditions of the country. In that sense, this study is also a critique of the global and local (neo)colonial structures that marginalise and devalue emerging but peripheral forms of popular music.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) | ||||||
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| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Latin America, Popular Music, Globalization, Resistance, Ecuador, Independent Music | ||||||
| Subjects: | CAH25 - design, and creative and performing arts > CAH25-02 - performing arts > CAH25-02-02 - music | ||||||
| Divisions: | Doctoral Research College > Doctoral Theses Collection Faculty of Arts, Design and Media > Birmingham School of Media |
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| Depositing User: | Jaycie Carter | ||||||
| Date Deposited: | 27 Jul 2022 14:04 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 27 Jul 2022 14:04 | ||||||
| URI: | https://www.open-access.bcu.ac.uk/id/eprint/13445 |
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