Conveners
Mediterranean Imaginaries and Decolonial Perspectives from Abya Yala: Rethinking Global Music Histories
- Diรณsnio Machado Neto (Universidade de Sรฃo Paulo)
Description
This panel addresses the International Musicological Societyโs conference theme, Global Mediterranean: Postcolonial Music Histories (16thโ20th Centuries), by proposing an expanded view of the Mediterranean as an โimage-languageโ that transcends geographical borders and resonates in multiple contexts, including Abya Yala (Latin America). Engaging with the idea of a โresounding Mediterraneanโ as a locus of cultural multiplicity, we examine how postcolonial theoretical frameworks from a Latin American vantage point inspire a rethinking of global music histories. Our approach foregrounds the Mediterranean as a pluriversal microcosm marked by flows of exchange, colonial impositions, and enduring hierarchies that shape how music is created, circulated, and perceived. In dialogue with Dipesh Chakrabarty, Walter Mignolo, Gloria Anzaldรบa, Silvia Cusicanqui, and Ailton Krenak, we propose a decolonial musicology that recognizes ancestral knowledge, communal cosmovisions, and subaltern experiences. This perspective not only contests eurocentric narratives but also illuminates marginalized musical practices. By adopting transcontinental and translocal lenses, we acknowledge interwoven paths between Iberian (and broader European) influences, African diasporic heritage, and Indigenous knowledges in shaping Latin American musical identities. In doing so, we align with the conferenceโs emphasis on expanding the Mediterraneanโs cultural and historical scope across oceans and continents, reevaluating how colonial connections and power structures impactedโand continue to influenceโmusic-making and historiography.
This panel brings together four contributions exemplifying these concerns. The first one explores Regional Labels and Postcolonial Discourses around Tango (1980sโ2020s), revealing how โRioplatense,โ โSouth American,โ and โLatin Americanโ tangos were employed to address economic and nationalist crises while reinforcing or contesting hegemonic discourses. The secondengages with questions raised by Postcolonial Studies, reflecting on the definition of subaltern subjects who serve as protagonists in local and translocal histories of music in the southern regions of Latin America. Considering the diversity of manifest identities and those overlooked by dominant historiography, it becomes essential to reevaluate these subjects' relationships and degrees of dependence or autonomy concerning the persistence of hierarchies and values rooted in Eurocentrism.
The next one Fabio Matias investigates the colonial simulacrum around Afro-Brazilian religiosity in Canto de Xangรด, from the iconic album Os Afro-Sambas (1966). Drawing on Afro-referenced approaches to musical signification, he shows how power imbalances, racialized violence, and identity distortions obscure Xangรดโs ancestral legacy. This perspective uncovers marginalized narratives in Brazilian popular music and underscores the need to confront residual colonial structures in contemporary music-making.
The final contribution focuses on Decolonial Epistemologies and Musical Translocalities: Transformations in Contemporary Musicology, highlighting how postcolonial/decolonial approaches reshape the discipline by destabilizing Eurocentric canons, critiquing power in musical circulation, and embracing translocal epistemologies. Together, these presentations explore how musical histories, practices, and epistemologies intersect with the โextendedโ Mediterranean and postcolonial realities in Abya Yala. By addressing ancestry, diasporic mobility, and cultural resistance, the panel demonstrates how decentering the eurocentric gaze creates new spaces for interstitial and subaltern voices in music scholarship. We propose an insurgent framework for global musicologyโone that confronts colonial legacies while envisioning more inclusive, just, and plural musical futures.
