Music, identity, and competition at the "Festival de Música del Pacífico Petronio Álvarez": Netnography of an afro diaspora on the Colombian Pacific coast

• Grant number: 20/08808-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: July 01, 2020
• End date: June 30, 2021
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts - Music
• Principal Investigator: Suzel Ana Reily
• Grantee: Christian David Portuguez Mosquera
• Host Institution: Instituto de Artes (IA). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 16/05318-7 - Local Musicking - new pathways for ethnomusicology, AP.TEM

Abstract

The project aims to investigate the musicking of the "Festival de Música del Pacífico Petronio Álvarez" in the context of Afro-descendant communities, which takes place annually in the city of Cali in the department of Valle del Cauca, Colombia, the second city with the largest Afro-descendant population in Latin America. The festival was designed to preserve and disseminate traditional music from the Colombian Pacific coast through a competition that chooses the best representatives of each category, and includes the participation of groups from the departments of Chocó, Valle del Cauca, Cauca and Nariño, whose population is mostly of African descent. It is intended to discuss the festival as a place of identity for these communities based on the analysis of elements of tradition and ethnicity observed in music. In addition, the impact of the music industry and the reconfiguration caused by competition will be evaluated through multiple points of view of the authors that will be studied in this research. Due to the difficult moment caused by the Covid19 pandemic, cancellation of events and difficult current access to the site, this research will be developed using the Netnographic method. The field research will involve musicians who participated in the festival, native and non-native spectators and virtual communities that deal with subjects articulated to it.