Abstracts Category : Other

Resistance Resounds| Hearing Power in Mexico City

by Anthony William Rasmussen

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 centersthat of the sonicremains unexamined. This dissertation is organized into four case studies that each address distinct yet interrelated manifestations of sonorous struggles for territorial dominance: 1) the specialized listening and sound producing practices of street vendors in Mexico Citys 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 <i>son jarocho</i> (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 Citys 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.