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This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Sounds of revival popular resistance through the practice of Chilean cueca Batlle Lathrop, Maria Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 04. Oct. 2021 Sounds of Revival. Popular Resistance through the Practice of Chilean Cueca MARÍA BERNARDITA BATLLE LATHROP Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Word count (excluding Bibliography and Appendix): 89.363 KING’S COLLEGE, LONDON JULY 2019 1 ABSTRACT The cueca, national dance of Chile, involves various styles that correspond to different social identities. The official version most commonly receives the name of cueca huasa, in association with rural imaginaries that respond to elites’ landowning nostalgia. This thesis examines the revival process of the historically unofficial variant of the Chilean cueca—urban-popular cueca—which has been unfolding since the early 1990s, coincidently with the return to democracy. Understanding that the post-dictatorship period in Chile still exhibits considerable remnants of tacit authoritarianism and manifest inequity, my main argument is that during the past three decades the practice of urban- popular cueca has represented a space for popular resistance. Notions of el pueblo and the fiesta popular are crucial to grasping the cultural specificity of this revival process and this cueca as a site of resistance. Through ethnographic methods, I analyse three dimensions within which I understand such resistance to operate. First, a political one, which entails notions of folklore and national identity, examining how the cueca has moved away from such hegemonic identifications in a process of de-folklorisation. Secondly, a social dimension involving the vindication of a popular identity that is central to this revival cueca style, and which is grounded on the figure of the roto and the practice of canto a la rueda. And thirdly, a gender dimension concerning the (re)construction of a contemporary urban cantora archetype as an essential part of the process of women’s entrance into the male-dominated world of urban-popular cueca. Moreover, reflexive research methods involving my own experience of music learning and social interactions in the field have helped me interrogate my positionality within the cueca scene and its historical processes. Finally, through music analysis, I build a stylistic history of the genre that further illustrates these political, sociocultural and gender dynamics and tensions. 2 CONTENTS Abstract ............................................................................................................................ 2 Contents ........................................................................................................................... 3 Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... 7 Note on Translation ...................................................................................................... 11 List of Tables and Figures ............................................................................................ 12 Chapter 1: Introduction ............................................................................................... 15 Background: Historical Context and National Identity ............................................... 17 The origins ............................................................................................................... 17 The cueca as national identity .................................................................................. 20 General Definitions ..................................................................................................... 22 The cueca dance ....................................................................................................... 22 The cueca as popular poetry .................................................................................... 22 The music of the cueca ............................................................................................ 29 Rationale and Theoretical Framework: on the Concept of Popular Resistance ......... 30 The concept of resistance ......................................................................................... 31 The fiesta popular .................................................................................................... 32 Methodology ............................................................................................................... 36 Thesis Structure ........................................................................................................... 39 Chapter 2: Reflexive Research Methods. A Process of Becoming a Chilean Cueca Practitioner .................................................................................................................... 41 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 41 Reflexivity and Autoethnography ............................................................................... 43 About myself: Growing Up, Social and Musical Backgrounds .................................. 47 Becoming a Cueca Practitioner ................................................................................... 50 First approaches ....................................................................................................... 50 Official Lessons: rhythm, the internal pulse of the cueca........................................ 53 Discussion: Learning as Becoming both Musically and Socially ................................ 61 Conclusions ................................................................................................................. 67 3 Chapter 3: Social and Political Developments in the Chilean cueca. From Música Folklórica to Música Popular........................................................................................ 69 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 69 Terminology and False Friends: Folklore and Popular Music in the English and Spanish Languages .................................................................................................................... 71 Folk music and popular music in the English language .......................................... 71 From popular music to música popular ................................................................... 72 Spanish usages of música folklórica, música popular, el pueblo and lo popular.... 73 The cueca between lo popular and folklore............................................................. 74 Chilean Cueca: Between Margins and Institutionalism .............................................. 75 Historical background: the conquest, colonisation and independence of Chile ...... 75 1830-1860: the installation of cueca during the conservative governments ............ 77 1860-1925: the rise and fall of cueca in a liberal society ........................................ 78 1925-1990: the depurative re-nationalisation of cueca between dictatorships. ....... 79 Post-Dictatorship Cueca: De-Folklorisation ............................................................... 82 An association with lo popular ................................................................................ 85 An association with Chilean folklore: the defence of tradition ............................... 87 Bringing new elements to the cueca ........................................................................ 89 Conclusions ................................................................................................................. 93 Chapter 4: A Stylistic History of the Chilean Cueca ................................................. 96 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 96 Methodology ............................................................................................................ 97 Musical Analysis ....................................................................................................... 101 Example N° 1: La Japonesa ..................................................................................