Drums, Raps, and Song-Games: an Ethnography of Music and Peacebuilding in the Afro-Colombian Town of Libertad (Sucre)
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DRUMS, RAPS, AND SONG-GAMES: AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF MUSIC AND PEACEBUILDING IN THE AFRO-COLOMBIAN TOWN OF LIBERTAD (SUCRE) Juan Sebastián Rojas Submitted to the faculty of the University Graduate School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology Indiana University July 2018 Accepted by the Graduate Faculty, Indiana University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Doctoral Committee _____________________________________ Sue Tuohy, PhD _____________________________________ John McDowell, PhD _____________________________________ Daniel Reed, PhD _____________________________________ Shane Greene, PhD May 18, 2018. ii Copyright © 2018 Juan Sebastián Rojas iii To Ralam, Chabelo, And all the musicians in Libertad. You show the way. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation became a reality because multiple institutions and individuals supported it financially, academically, and personally. Time and space make it impossible for me to mention all the people that helped finish this project, one way or another, which is why I will do my best to acknowledge the main parties that supported this dissertation directly. To all others, I could not have made it without you. You know who you are. First and foremost, I thank the people of Libertad, who are an inspiration and who allowed me into their community and were always supportive, open, and treated me with respect. This dissertation is also theirs. I especially thank Luis Miguel Caraballo “Ralam,” with whom I have cultivated a good friendship, and who allowed me to get close to his personal project, Afro-Música en los Montes de María, to do research. I am especially grateful for Isabel Martínez “Chabelo,” a good friend, whose mastery of local lore and kindness as a host have no comparison, and who is the most committed individual to cultural projects and activities in the town of Libertad. In Chabelo’s house, I also appreciate all the support I received from Nicolás Guzmán, her husband, and Nergina Guzmán, her daughter, who were always ready to help me when I needed it and were always nice and warm. I would like to dearly thank my Dissertation Committee co-Chairs, Dr. Sue Tuohy and Dr. John McDowell, without whom I would not have been able to finish this project, and who guided me through it. I especially thank Dr. Sue Tuohy for putting so much work into suggesting revisions before the defense. I also want to thank the other members of my committee, Dr. Daniel Reed and Dr. Shane Greene, whose careful reading and valuable v comments helped make this manuscript stronger. I am grateful for my dear colleague Kurt Baer, whose attentive reading helped me catch idiomatic inconsistencies and helped improve the language of the dissertation. During my time in graduate school at Indiana University, many people impacted my thinking and helped me better understand the social sciences, my own ideas, and academia in general. One person I dearly thank is Dr. Javier Leon, my Masters’ Thesis Advisor, whose seminars and continued counsel at Indiana University guided me throughout my entire graduate school experience and helped shape this project. Other professors that I thank for their teachings, inspiration, and support are Dr. David McDonald, Dr. Ruth Stone, Dr. Portia Maultsby, Dr. Diane Goldstein, and Dr. Alan Burdette at the Archives of Traditional Music. I owe appreciation to many colleagues at the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, who gave me motivation, inspiration, and feedback for writing this dissertation. I especially thank Oliver Shao, Rodrigo Chocano, Douglas Peach, Dr. Mintzi Auanda Martinez-Rivera, Dikshant Uprety, Shaun Williams, Dr. Eric Morales, Nate Gibson, Julián Carrillo, and Dr. Mitsuko Kawabata. At Indiana University and outside of it, it was a privilege to learn from and share stage with master drummers Bernard Woma (RIP), Djo Bi Irie Simon, and Michael Spiro at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. There are too many people in Libertad that I would have to mention in this lines for their appreciation and support. Especially, I want to thank all the community leaders from local organizations that made efforts to participate in this project, either setting aside time to talk and answering my questions, or actively looking towards making my work and my stay in Libertad easier. Among these committed leaders I wish to thank Yamil Caraballo, Manolo Ríos, Leocadio Banquez, and Manuela Ríos, from the Impulse Committee. I also vi want to thank Alfredo Julio and Viola Banquez from the Afro-Colombian Communal Council, Mingo Arias from Libertad’s Elders Association, as well as Jorge “El Mago” Gómez and Jorge Mario Palomino from the Juvenile Peace-Fostering Organization of Libertad. These people are the leading characters in this story and without them the following pages would have never been written. I also wish to thank Nelcy Gómez, her husband Fornalis, and Doña Gloria, the family with whom I stayed at a beautiful house in Libertad, as well as Doña Roquelina, my dear friend that shared with me many of the secrets of local gastronomy. I want to thank Andrea Orrego, Aida Bustamante, Simón González, and Antonio Alarcón at the Victims Unit for their collaboration and support with this project when I needed it. Many institutions contributed to this project through grant programs and I wish to acknowledge them. First, I want to thank my department, the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University, who supported me with the Richard M. Dorson Dissertation Research Award 2015, as well as with the Ronald R. Smith Fellowships during the years 2014 and 2016. I also want to thank the Center for Research on Race and Ethnicity in Society Schuessler Institute for Social Research at Indiana University, who granted me a Graduate Student Research Grant in 2015 and the Graduate and Professional Student Organization at Indiana University for awarding me a Graduate Student Research Award in 2015. I used these awards to fund my first year of dissertation fieldwork. I am also grateful for the Ministry of Culture of Colombia, who awarded me the Colombians Studying Arts and/or Culture Abroad Scholarship, which allowed me to complete my fieldwork between 2016 and 2017. I am greatly indebted to the Office of International Services at Indiana University, whose Eoyang-Lee Fellowship program allowed to do the vii final write-up of this dissertation between 2017 and 2018. I also want to thank the College Arts and Humanities Institute at Indiana University, who granted me a Travel Award in 2016 to attend the 61st Society for Ethnomusicology Annual Meeting in Washington D.C., and present progress on my dissertation research to my colleagues at a panel I shared with Drs. Ian Middelton, Joshua Katz-Rosene, and Jud Wellington. Finally, I thank Dr. Daniel Peretti for copyediting this dissertation. At a personal level, my deepest appreciation goes to my parents, Patricia Enciso and Alfonso Rojas, who have always supported me and believed in me from day one of this project. For their appreciation, admiration, and backup, I thank them dearly. Similarly, I want to thank my partner, Melody Cutsinger, for her continued kindness, support, and encouragement during this process. She made my bitter days, sweeter. This dissertation would never have happened without Lucía Ibáñez and Urián Sarmiento, my family at Sonidos Enraizados Cultural Corporation, with whom I travelled for the first time to Libertad in January 2014, and with whom we have continued to work with this community, among other projects. For this, I also thank Felipe Medina from the NGO Origen Circular, who invited us on that first occasion to work at a local cultural festival in Libertad. viii Juan Sebastián Rojas DRUMS, RAPS, AND SONG-GAMES: AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF MUSIC AND PEACEBUILDING IN THE AFRO-COLOMBIAN TOWN OF LIBERTAD (SUCRE) Throughout the world, violent conflicts negatively impact economies, cultural practices, and the social relations within societies. Focusing on a case study of a cooperative national and community effort that highlights musical and traditional cultural practices, this dissertation explores programs aimed at peacebuilding in post-conflict societies. The Afro- Caribbean town of Libertad, Colombia, suffered violent ruptures during a rightwing paramilitary occupation between 1996 and 2004. In 2007, the Colombian national government began working with community members to implement a Collective Reparation Plan to assist in rebuilding the community and its social fabric. Based on local beliefs that cultural and artistic practices play key roles creating frameworks for collective action and community-building, they designed projects to revive traditional musics and cultural expressions as well as to create new works that resonate more directly with the youth. The revival of traditional funerary wake games and the construction of the musical genre bullenrap—a fusion of hip-hop and local bullerengue—exemplify local strategies for ameliorating problems such as the loss of traditional knowledges and intergenerational tensions in creative and nonviolent ways. Liberteño artists have built frameworks for solidarity and education through participatory performances that empower community members and address local issues through empathy. Based on long-term ethnographic research, this dissertation argues that these programs have been successful because they: 1) build upon a long history of using