Race, Identities and Transnational Soundscapes

Dear Colleagues,

Folkloric and ethnomusicological studies in the twentieth century historically focused on local frames, while the consolidation of musical genres was associated with a preoccupation for identities and racial designations largely framed within the nation-state, in the context of evolving music industries. More recent studies of globalization and migration have attended to the translocality of the contemporary world, including the ever-increasing mobilities of music and other sound-forms. We are interested here in expanding on recent reflections regarding the profound implications of sonic travel across multiple social geographies for reconceptualizing identity formation and racial politics (see Ochoa Gautier 2014, 2024).

For example, in his study of the aural poetics of the Mexican musical and poetic genre of huapango arribeño, Alex Chávez (2017) situates the traversing of boundaries, political and otherwise, as an analytical focus for interrogating relational processes of “sonic enactment and reception” (7) “at the crossroads of transnational economic integration and border restrictions” (135). Deconstructing the “racializing logic of the U.S.-Mexico border within the continental United States” (219) in its prescription and proscription of sonic registers, Sounds of Crossing examines the materiality of citizenship, nostalgia, companionship, affect and solidarity. Centered in an analytics of power, Chávez’s work invites us to explore the role of aural immediacy in articulating selves and subjectivities in relation to others across space.

Furthermore, the impact of musical vitality and affect on communities of diverse origins (Stainova 2022) can contribute to the creation of “audiotopias” (Kun 2005), confounding received identities, frustrating authority, and traversing national borders, geocultural spaces, audiences, and historical periods (Aparicio and Jáquez 2003). John Burdick (2013) for example, shows that, while Brazilian Protestants may appear to stay away from racial politics, those engaged in Black American gospel are involved in the formation of powerful Afro-diasporic identifications. His work helps us theorize the trajectories of soundforms as they are carried across multiple locales by diverse collectivities (see also Um 2005, Corona and Madrid 2008, and Wong 2004, among others).

We seek contributions to this thematic journal issue that examine the articulations and intersections between race, identities, and transnational soundscapes, deepening the implications of some of these ideas for an understanding of a broad range of issues, including the following:

1. The roles of sonic repertoires, sustained and ephemeral, in the constitution of ethno-racial identities within and beyond nation-state framings.
2. The ways racialized sounds are policed, and the effects of governmentality on the musical traditions of Indigenous and migrant communities.
3. The forms modern tropes of alterity figure in the production, distribution, and consumption of globalized music.
4. The ways in which acoustic assemblages communicate layers of meaning that deepen solidarity and nourish collectivities in the face of racism and social exclusion.
5. The sound forms/genres that inspire Indigenous, Black, Asian, Latinx and other racialized composers and musicians to tell stories of vitality and resistance in transcultural contexts.
6. The use of timbre, melisma, pitch, belts and growls in establishing ethno-racial transcultural affinities.
7. Musical vitality’s role in bolstering cross-cultural refusals of containment, as well as the role of anti-oppression activism in musical production and consumption on global stages.
8. The role of sound and music in the formation of a pluriverse, that is, “heterogeneous worldings coming together as a political ecology of practices, negotiating their difficult being together in heterogeneity” (de la Cadena and Blaser 2017: 4).

We seek contributions from authors working within transdisciplinary frameworks, whether in anthropology, ethnomusicology, global studies, ethnic studies, migration studies, Africana studies, Latinx studies, sociology, cultural studies, Critical Race studies, women, gender and sexuality studies, Indigenous studies, and beyond.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 200 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the Guest Editors npravaz@wlu.ca, asnyder@fcsh.unl.pt) or to the Genealogy Editorial Office (genealogy@mdpi.com). Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer review.

References:

Aparicio, Frances R. and Cándida F. Jáquez, eds. 2003. Musical Migrations: Transnationalism and Cultural Hybridity in Latin/o America, Volume 1. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230107441.

Burdick, John. 2013. The Color of Sound: Race, Religion, and Music in Brazil. NYU Press. https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9780814709221.001.0001.  

Chávez, Alex. 2017. Sounds of Crossing: Music, Migration, and the Aural Poetics of Huapango Arribeño. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822372202.  

Corona, Ignacio and Alejandro L. Madrid. 2008. Postnational Musical Identities: Cultural Production, Distribution, and Consumption in a Globalized Scenario. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

de la Cadena, Marisol and Mario Blaser. 2018. “Introduction: Pluriverse Proposals for a World of Many Worlds.” In A World of Many Worlds, edited by Marisol de la Cadena and Mario Blaser. Duke University Press.  https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478004318-001.  

Kun, Josh. 2005. Audiotopia: Music, Race and America. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Ochoa Gautier, Ana Maria. 2014. Aurality: Listening and Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century Colombia. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822376262.   

Ochoa Gautier, Ana Maria. 2024. "Reading through Aurality’s Afterlives." American Music 42 (1): 74-80. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/965480.

Stainova, Yana. 2021. Sonorous Worlds: Musical Enchantment in Venezuela. University of Michigan Press. https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.11698102.  

Um, Hae-kyung. 2005. Diasporas and Interculturalism in Asian Performing Arts: Translating Traditions. London: RoutledgeCurzon.

Wong, Deborah. 2004. Speak it Louder: Asian Americans Making Music. New York: Routledge.

Dr. Natasha Pravaz
Dr. Andrew Snyder
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Genealogy is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• transnational soundscapes
• race
• identity
• diaspora
• music