UCLA

In the wake of an ever-expanding global network, attention is often focused on cultural intersections and juxtapositions set in motion by financial or technological interests. Relying on frameworks that place people and societies into binary (e.g., oppressed and oppressor, influenced and influencer, etc.) or hierarchical relationships (e.g., First World and Third world, developed and developing, etc.), scholars in the humanities and social sciences continue to grapple with the ramifications of rapid inter-cultural processes active across the globe. Hierarchical and hegemonic frameworks fail to account for the reciprocal nature of inter-cultural exchange occurring within such frameworks. With respect to Latin American music, such intra-hierarchical exchange has been ubiquitous, constant, and necessary for the development of a plethora of musical genres across Latin America and the United States. In the last fifty years, these interactions have been exacerbated by the speed at which technology makes inter-cultural interaction ever more instantaneous, pervasive, and intensely creative in contemporary contexts. How might a methodology focused on exchange between musicians in Latin America and the United States yield a more nuanced understanding of inter-cultural dynamics in a contemporary context? Utilizing ethnography focused on musicians who have forged careers from the confluence of disparate musical genres, this project explores the relationship Latin American musicians share with each other and with musicians in the United States as a means to better understand inter-cultural dynamics within a network consisting of multiple cultures, situated within different nations, and in diverse socio-economic standings. The result will be a study aimed at understanding how individuals consume foreign cultural influences by grounding themselves in familiar cultural realities, how polycultural identities are forged in such a process, and how this process is crystallized in the music of select artists from Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Untied States.