Beautiful Politics of Music: Trova in Yucatán, MexicoAn exploration into the history and practice of trova, a genre of music that is the soul of Yucatán. Yucatecan trova is a music genre comprising a type of romantic song that is considered “the soul of Yucatán and Yucatecans.” This first book on Yucatecan trova offers an insider’s view of the history and practice of a treasured cultural heritage. A central theme of Gabriela Vargas-Cetina’s ethnography is what she refers to as the “beautiful politics of music” practiced by Yucatecan trova patrons and organizations, which is a way of asserting the importance of groups and issues through nonconfrontational means. Trova emerged on the peninsula at the end of the nineteenth century and continues to be part of the general urban soundscape in the states of Yucatán and Campeche. Until the 1920s, this music was little known outside Yucatán and became absorbed into the larger Latin American Bolero genre, making it difficult to perceive its uniqueness and relation to life in Yucatán. Vargas-Cetina, a native Yucatecan and trova musician, offers ethnographic insight into the local music scene. With family connections, she embedded herself as a trovadora, and her fieldwork—singing, playing the guitar in a trova group, and extensively researching the genre and talking with fellow enthusiasts and experts—ensued. Trova, like other types of artistic endeavors, is the result of collaboration and social milieu. She describes the dedicated trova clubs, cultural institutions, the Yucatecan economy of agricultural exports, and identity politics that helped the music come about and have maintained it today. Positioned in the larger context of the music of Mexico and Latin America and engaging with theories of modernity and cosmopolitanism, experimental ethnography, and the anthropology of organizations, Beautiful Politics of Music consists of rigorous scholarship. It is also a warm tribute to performers and songs that have inspired many people around the world for more than two centuries. |
Contents
Music Identity and the Yucatecan Puzzle | 1 |
The Fight for Trova as the Classical Music of a Cosmopolitan Yucatán | 21 |
The Music of a Cosmopolitan Modernity | 60 |
Trova and the Mexicanization of Yucatán | 90 |
Bohemians Organization and Yucatecan Trova Music | 126 |
Vernacular Cosmopolitanism Modernity and the Beautiful Politics of Music | 160 |
Notes | 167 |
Glossary | 175 |
| 179 | |
Discography | 197 |
| 201 | |
Other editions - View all
Beautiful Politics of Music: Trova in Yucatan, Mexico Gabriela Vargas Cetina No preview available - 2017 |
Common terms and phrases
afer Alvarado America Angelita Armando Manzanero bambuco Baqueiro Fóster beautiful politics became bohemians bolero Caribbean Carrillo Puerto catán catecan Cervera Chan Cil city of Mérida civic associations classical music Club compact disc composers concerts cosmopolitan Cuba Cuban dance danza Díaz Don Roberto Doña Charito festivities friends funded governor of Yucatán groups guitar Guty Guty Cárdenas haciendas henequen jarana José Latin American live Los Panchos Maestra Rosita Martín Briceño 2014 Maya Mérida mestizo Mexican Mexico City modernity Museum music of Yucatán ofen organizations Orquesta Típica party Pérez Sabido performed played poets popular radio station recorded regional requinto rhythms Ricardo Palmerín romantic rondalla singing social societies Spanish styles tán Teatro theater tion trios trova music trova musicians trova songs trova yucateca trovadores twentieth century type of music vernacular Yuca Yucatán Peninsula Yucate Yucatecan music Yucatecan Song Yucatecan trova Yucatecan trova music