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Zona Próxima ISSN: 1657-2416 [email protected] Universidad del Norte Colombia Gontovnik, Gónica Tracking transnational Shakira on her way to conquer the world Zona Próxima, núm. 13, julio-diciembre, 2010, pp. 142-155 Universidad del Norte Barranquilla, Colombia Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=85317326010 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative ARTÍCULOS DE REFLEXIÓN DISCUSSION ARTICLES Tracking transnational Shakira on her way to conquer the world zona Rastreando a la Shakira transnacional en su camino a la globalizacion Mónica Gontovnik Cristo Hoyos. Hamaca. Pastel, tinta y acrílico sobre papel (detalle). próxima MÓNICA GONTOVNIK PROFESORA TIEMPO COMPLETO DE LA UNIVERSIDAD DEL NORTE ADSCRITA AL DEPARTAMENTO DE HUMANIDADES Y FILOSOFÍA. MIEMBRO DEL GRUPO DE INVESTIGACIÓN DE LITERATURA DEL zona próxima CARIBE. CANDIDATA A DOCTOR EN ESTUDIOS INTERDISCIPLINARIOS EN ARTES Y PROFESORA DE LA UNIVERSIDAD DE OHIO. MASTER EN Revista del Instituto ESTUDIOS INTERDISCIPLINARIOS EN ARTE Y PSICOLOGÍA DE NAROPA de Estudios en Educación UNIVERSITY, COLORADO. BACHELOR OF SCIENCE EN DANZA DE Universidad del Norte SKIDMORE UNIVERSITY WITHOUT WALLS, NEW YORK. EGRESADA DE LA FACULTAD DE FILOSOFÍA Y LETRAS DE LA UNIVERSIDAD nº13 julio - diciembre, 2010 METROPOLITANA, BARRANQUILLA. POETA Y PERFORMER. 35 WOLFE STREET # 41. ATHENS, OHIO, 45701. ISSN 1657-2416 [email protected] The Colombian singer and composer Shakira, has become a transnational ACT musical product. Her presence on the world STR stage is by now a commodity that screams AB the ideology of a unified globe. In the latest version of the FIFA’s World Cup (2010) she was the main musical number for the inaugural concert because her proposed song was chosen as the event’s anthem. Shakira, artista compositora y cantante Controversy for her use of a song from pop, se ha vuelto un producto Cameroon that was popular in Colombia transnacional. Su presencia como in the 1980s was diffused on time by estrella principal en el show de La copa good political moves. With this latest song Mundial de Futbol es la más fuerte and video, Shakira again represents her evidencia de su globalización. A tiempo “blackness”, her “Caribbeaness”, pointing se difuminó con movidas políticas y strongly to a performative activity that has económicas, una controversia acerca del been having effect since she crossed the uso de una canción de Camerún famosa Colombian and Latin American borders en los ochenta para su último video in order to start recording under Miami’s (Waka Waka) donde vemos claramente pop star producing machine. I trace in this su asociación con “lo otro” y las ideas paper, through a few of her music videos, de raza que prevalecen en los Estados RESUMEN what she has chosen or asked or coached Unidos. Mientras Shakira es identificada to represent, as she performs her way to como la otra, la caribe, ella asciende en global stardom: tamed otherness. An ethics la cultura popular mundial gracias a su of aesthetics of popular culture is what is performance de “deseable extranjera”, asked though this reflection, especially término acuñado por Kasia Marciniak since Shakira is a professed humanitarian cuando analiza el cine desde una óptica who has created the Barefoot Foundation feminista transnacional. Aplicamos in order to educate marginalized aquí ese concepto para mostrar lo que Colombian children. encontramos durante un rastreamiento KEYWORDS: Transnationalism, globalization, de sus veinte años de performance. performance, performativity, otherness, Creemos que es necesaria una ética race, ethnicity, identity. del performance identitaria en la cultura popular, sobre todo si una artista como Shakira desarrolla una importante labor a través de su fundación que provee de educación a miles de niños no privilegiados de Colombia. PALABRAS CLAVE: Transnacionalismo, globalización, performance, performatividad, otredad, raza, etnicidad, identidad. fecha de recepción: julio 30 de 2010 fecha de aceptación: octubre 22 de 2010 Monica Gontovnik INTRODUCCIÓN makes them immune to rules and regulations that impede border crossing. These pop stars that had usually stared as “others” themselves, his paper sprung from a question that by becoming globally adored, after conforming was posed by Rolling Stone Magazine in to the cultural states of the global music industry, November, 2009. On its cover, we can T can in turn affect their own localities in many see a beautiful woman, easily recognized now ways. But with this hard-earned ability to become by North American audiences, and the title: Can transnational, comes an ethical obligation. Shakira Conquer the World? Why the question in the first place? Is it being implied that this As Appiah (2006) suggests, once we realize we artist’s border crossing is different from others’? are in a global tribe, there are a lot of effects our Was it due to her being identified as a woman actions exert on others and the planet. I wonder if from an “underdeveloped” country, implying that Shakira is aware of her responsibility to her global her otherness made her less likely to succeed in tribe as she performs herself and allows herself conquering the global market? What does this to be performed. tell us about the way globalization flows? In this paper I am suggesting that Shakira has become Looking at Shakira’s transformations on her road what Marciniak (2007, p.193) calls a “palatable to global stardom, one can track a pattern that foreigner,” an idea that reflects the might seem obvious and easy to pinpoint, but […] Western gaze (or more specifically a U.S. whose movement signal to the repeated perfor- gaze) [that] is visually and conceptually “trained” mance of an otherness that needs to be domesti- in particular ways, already accustomed to certain cated. In order to become global, Shakira first had kinds of onscreen female foreignness ready for to cross many borders. First she had to pass what spectatorial visual consumption: non threaten- I would like to call a “national identity border.” She ing. Sentimentalized, often “comforting” in its had to go from local-provincial, to central-national awkwardness, shyness and “otherness, that Trinh calls “the exotic and erotic feminine ethnic when moving from her hometown (Barranquilla) minority” (Trihn 1991, p. 115). to the capital town (Bogotá). The next border was crossed when she became transnational in Latin Transnational studies is a new academic field that America (she started performing all over the Latin intends to look at social phenomena whose in- American countries). Then, she became a USA teractions can be seen through multiple perspec- resident after crossing the American border in tives in order to find how categories and identities order to work where the music industry is located change according to the particularity of situations and thus became a “Latina.” Once she surpassed that have to do with borders among and inside this last border and started to use identification of nations, (Khagram and Levitt, 2008). Align- markers that set her as a palatable foreigner, she ing myself with this postulate, I want to explore was ready to go global. Her ability to pass, cross Shakira’s internal and external transnationalism as and defy cultural borders is what is interesting in an effect of the globalization of the music indus- order to instigate transnational theories. try, which produces recognizable accepted and standardized stars that then begin to circulate all Shakira was born in Barranquilla in 1977 from the over the world as bearers of a special status that second marriage of her father, William Mebarak, 144 ZONA PRÓXIMA Nº 13 (2010) PÁGS. 142-155 Tracking transnational Shakira on her way to conquer the world of Lebanese ascendancy, and Nidia Ripoll, also Shakira had struggled in her native city to find suc- Colombian with Spanish ascendancy. Barran- cess since her childhood, but that only became quilla, the main Colombian port until the middle possible when she moved to Bogota, the capital of the 20th century, is a city that has traditionally city of Colombia, with her mother in order to pur- been the port of entry for all kinds of musical sue her career. She had crossed her first border, influences to the whole country. Wade (2000) the regional one. Still an adolescent, she signed in his book on Colombia’s popular music, makes a contract with Sony Music, wrote her own songs an extensive study of the importance of the city and produced two records: Magia (1990) and of Barranquilla and the whole North Coast of Peligro (1993). She was on her way to becom- Colombia as a cultural marker of difference and ing trans-national in a very regionalist country. a great producer of musicians, painters and writ- In Colombia, people identify themselves with ers, due to the its connection to the United States their places of origin and recognize each other and Europe via its large immigrant population. by the accents, their ways of moving, food and many habits easily spotted by anyone raised in There are many stories about Shakira writing the country. The move to the capital city, where songs and dancing since she was four years old. the economy of the country is dictated, meant Nothing different from most of the kids, boys and acquiring new ways of performing herself. And girls in the city of Barranquilla, where one of the perform she did: there she also landed a role in ways that Caribbean identity is forged as soon as a soap opera (telenovela) called Oasis (1994). a person is born, is by listening and dancing to music. She was also raised as a regular middle The costeña (coastal) girl was becoming visible class girl who went to a very traditional Catho- to people in her locality because she pertained lic school run by nuns (La Enseñanza), where now to the national space where cultural norms ironically the chorus teacher prevented her from are dictated.