Alex Chávez, Doctoral Candidate, Dept. of Anthropology, The University of Texas at Austin

November 10, 2009 4:00pm - 5:30pm
McKenna Hall 210 - 214, University of Notre Dame

Compañeros del Destino:
Transborder Social Lives, Huapango Arribeño and the Discoursing of Citizenship

Destined companions of the calling (compañeros del destino), huapango arribeño music practitioners often refer to each other as – a label that signifies the expressive bonding forged through the axis of encounter/engagement central to huapango arribeño’s performance. As of late, huapango arribeño, which originates in Mexico, has made its way across the border where it is performed among communities of listeners and practitioners in the U.S. This lecture by Alex E. Chávez unearths the cultural dimensions of the experiences of migration particular to the immigrant communities in question with focused attention on the performative (musical/discursive) contouring of the transborder imaginary – the prism through which they live and understand their lives, make decisions, work, perform, and imagine. Attention is given to the physical and metaphysical construction of the border between the U.S. and Mexico, to its militarization and officialized discourses of the nation and citizenship that legitimate draconian policy initiatives. Huapango arribeño – as a site of conviviality and sociality – it is argued, actively disrupts the dislocational alchemy of the borderlands, as communities themselves cultivate the linkages that shape the patterning of their multidirectional existence across borders. Reception 4:00–4:30 p.m. Lecture 4:30–5:30 p.m.

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