The Precarity of Sonic Geographies: Politics and Identity of Chilean Nueva Canción in East Germany
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The Precarity of Sonic Geographies: Politics and Identity of Chilean Nueva Canción in East Germany

Abstract

This dissertation examines the reception, circulation, and production of the Chilean political song movement known as nueva canción (“new song”) in the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany – GDR). This music, and its practitioners who lived in exile in the GDR during the years of the Pinochet Dictatorship (1973–1990), drew on diverse range of experiences, styles, and aspirations as they wrote and performed songs in the global Chilean solidarity movement. Similarly, East German audiences interacted with these songs from a variety of subject positions and with different goals for the future of the socialist state. To examine these interactions, I introduce the term “sonic geography,” which refers to alternative forms of geographic and cartographic praxis through musical and sonic engagement. I situate these alternate geographies within a framework of precarity, that I use here to describe how these formations were often unstable, fleeting, and contingent. The dissertation is based around four case studies in which I draw on cultural products from the GDR and interviews with Chilean and East German musicians to trace the shifts in these sonic geographies over time. Specifically, I address: 1) changes in the representation and programming of Chilean artists at the Festival of Political Songs (1970–1990) in relation to East German ideas of space in the Global South; 2) processes of exchange and participation between Chileans and East Germans through political anthems in the nueva canción movement; 3) the political and musical development of the most prominent musicians in exile in the GDR and how this was impacted by the cities in which they lived and their unique backgrounds; 4) the presence of Chilean musical activity in various textual sources and how this offers a counter-narrative to mainstream depictions of East German space, memory, and history. These case studies draw on different materials, theoretical streams, and methodologies to examine relationships between sound and space around this community. The sonic geographies that these relationships formed and the precarities that marked the ways they were bound together offer alternative ways of considering how the Chilean community in exile shaped space both within and outside of the GDR.

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