UC Riverside UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Resistance Resounds: Hearing Power in Mexico City Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3pw6s1ks Author Rasmussen, Anthony William Publication Date 2017 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Resistance Resounds: Hearing Power in Mexico City A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Music by Anthony William Rasmussen September 2017 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Jonathan Ritter, Chairperson Dr. René T.A. Lysloff Dr. Leonora Saavedra Dr. Deborah Wong Copyright by Anthony William Rasmussen 2017 The Dissertation of Anthony William Rasmussen is approved: Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside Acknowledgments The completion of this manuscript has truly been a community effort and I would be remiss if I failed to give credit to the people who, through their countless acts of kindness and sacrifices of time and energy, made all this possible. First, I must express my gratitude to the chilanga banda, my friends in Mexico City who opened doors for me, guided me, occasionally protected me, all the while encouraging me forward: Karla Ponce, Cuauhtémoc Alcántara, Ángel González, Mara Rodríguez, María González, Christian López-Negrete, Emiliano Suárez, and León Enríquez. I must give a special thanks to those who have directly contributed to the completion of this manuscript: to Oswaldo Mejía for your extraordinary support in arranging interviews, transcriptions, and for allowing me to include your photos; to Elizabeth Hernández for your assistance with interviews and transcriptions; and to Viviana Zuñiga Rojas, María Magdalena Alonso Pérez, Julie K. Wesp, and Karla Ponce for granting me permission to include your photos as well. I am deeply grateful to my dissertation committee: Jonathan Ritter, Leonora Saavedra, Deborah Wong, and René Lysloff. Your work has given me a standard of excellence to aspire to and without your stalwart support, priceless advice, and the liberty you have granted me, I would not have had the tools to conduct this research or the courage to complete it. To the faculty of UNAM’s graduate music program and especially Roberto Kolb, Gonzalo Camacho Díaz, Christian Spencer, and Lizette Alegre: thank you for going out of your way to make me feel at home. Thanks to Brenda Caro Cocotle who helped me get iv my bearings at a critical, early stage of this research. Thanks to Xóchitl Chávez who invited me to tag along on her adventures in the cloud forests of Oaxaca. And thanks to Jacky Ávila for your countless proofreads, your company in my wanderings around the city, and your enduring friendship. I wish to extend my gratitude to the entire staff the University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States (UC MEXUS). Through the UC MEXUS Dissertation Research Grant, I was able to fund a year of fieldwork in Mexico City and this has made an extraordinary difference in what I have been able to accomplish. Working in affiliation with your institution has been one of the great honors of my academic career. I would also like to thank the University of California, Riverside Graduate Division for supporting this research through the Graduate Research Mentorship Fellowship. Thanks to my family and friends in California and beyond: Eleanor Ohman, Daniel Rasmussen and Nichole Fink, David Rasmussen, Linda and Andy Rathfon, Radha Weaver, Cameron and Drake Smith, Maurgan and Keith Burke, Radha Weaver, Rod Weaver, Robert Ulloa and Diana Alvarado, Tim and Monica Smith, Anders Mouridsen and Kristen Hilkert, Michiko Freemond, Erin Gould, Kyle Harp-Rushing, and Kristina Rushing-Harp. You all kept me tethered when I felt myself drifting away. And last but never least, I must express thanks to my mother, Diana Rasmussen. As I skim these pages for split infinitives and dangling modifiers, I realize that I am truly my mother’s child. v For William vi ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Resistance Resounds: Hearing Power in Mexico City by Anthony William Rasmussen Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in Music University of California, Riverside, September 2017 Dr. Jonathan Ritter, Chairperson This dissertation addresses the sonorous attributes of hegemony and subaltern resistance within contemporary Mexico City. In this urban environment, inhabitants use sound to interpret and shift the balance of power that pervades their daily lives. I draw on the interdisciplinary research area of sound studies that regards the acoustic environment not only as an amalgam of sounds but as overlapping sites of cultural inscription, resistance, and reimagining. Recent works in the area of sound studies identify sound not only as a byproduct of social conflict but also as a weapon itself. While these studies emphasize the use of weaponized sounds in war zones, few studies exist concerning the insidious manipulation of acoustic environments by oppressive regimes during peacetime, or the efforts of marginalized groups to challenge this oppression through sound. As a result, a significant aspect of social conflict in urban centers—that of the sonic—remains unexamined. This dissertation is organized into four case studies that each address distinct yet vii interrelated manifestations of sonorous struggles for territorial dominance: 1) the specialized listening and sound producing practices of street vendors in Mexico City’s Historic Center; 2) the crisis of street harassment as a sonorous practice of patriarchal domination; 3) the mosaic of sonic differentiation found in the Chopo Cultural Bazaar and finally 4) the reconfiguration of son jarocho (a folkloric dance and musical tradition from Veracruz) by urban musicians as a form of counterhegemonic protest during the Ayotzinapa marches of 2014 and 2015. These four case studies represent nodes of broader patterns of oppression and resistance that are indicative of both Mexico City’s distinct history and its contemporary condition. The materiality and affective potency of these acoustic environments provide a crucial link between subjective sensory experiences and the social forces that inform them. The selective listening of sonically inundated urbanites, the politics of personal representation and group affiliation shown through aesthetic musical choices, and the occupation and contestation of acoustic space through the use of amplified sound all demonstrate tangible expressions of embodiment that speak to larger patterns of power. viii Table of Contents Acknowledgments .............................................................................................................. iv Abstract ............................................................................................................................. vii List of Illustrations ............................................................................................................ xii Note on Audio and Video Examples ............................................................................... xiv List of Audio Examples .....................................................................................................xv List of Video Examples ................................................................................................... xvi Chapter 1 – Introduction ..................................................................................................1 (Mis)hearing .............................................................................................................1 Phenomenological Considerations ...........................................................................4 Sonorous Encounters .............................................................................................10 Sound as Power ......................................................................................................17 The Soundscape Concept .......................................................................................23 Methodology and Chapter Organization ................................................................32 Toward a Transmusicality ......................................................................................37 Chapter 2 – Pregones Perdidos: Sales and Survival within the Acoustic Territories of the Historic Center ......................................................................................................44 Mexico City’s Informal Economy .........................................................................49 Acoustic Pruning ....................................................................................................57 Fixity as Status .......................................................................................................62 Battling the Bull .....................................................................................................68 Embodiment ...........................................................................................................71 Toreras ...................................................................................................................73 Empathy for the Devil ............................................................................................76 Impudent Voices…Uncooperative Ears ................................................................79 Pregones: If You Don’t Yell, You Don’t Sell ........................................................82