University of Michigan Press
Sonorous Worlds: Musical Enchantment in Venezuela
Key Metrics
- Yana Stainova
- University of Michigan Press
- Hardcover
- 9780472132737
- -
- -
- Music > Ethnomusicology
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
Sonorous Worlds is an ethnography of the young Venezuelan musicians who participate in El Sistema, many of whom live in urban barrios and face everyday gang violence, state repression, social exclusion, and forced migration in response to sociopolitical crisis. This book looks at how these youth engage with what the author calls enchantment, that is, how they use musical practices to escape, rupture, and critique dominant structures of power. Stainova's focus on artistic practice and enchantment allows her to theorize the successes and failures of political projects through the lens of the everyday transformations in people's lives.
Author Bio
As a sociocultural anthropologist, I am interested in art, urban poverty, social inequality, migration, and the lived experience of violence in Latin America. My research explores how people summon music practices to pursue visions of social justice in the face of political turmoil and barriers to immigration.
My first book project entitled Sonorous Worlds: Musical Enchantment in Venezuela studies how young people coming of age in the urban barrios of Caracas use music and stories to push back against the forces of everyday violence, social exclusion, and state repression.
My second book project, tentatively titled The Politics of Joy: Collective Art Practices across the US-Mexico Border focuses on Latinx migration and artistic practices in North America.
Source: McMaster University
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