Tumbando muros – Chanting Down the Walls

Musik, Migrationspolitik, Menschenwürde

Abstract

The complex relationship between people and places has increasingly become a subject of scholarly inquiry with the rapid growth of globalizing processes since the 1990s. Place attachment and memories are central to coming to terms with one’s fate, especially for people displaced from their homelands by economic or ecological crises and political conflicts. Music plays an important role in coping with insuing inequalities and feelings of powerlessness. For example, politically engaged bands often build on musical styles and genres located in specific listening traditions to musically challenge an unjust judicial system by subverting auditory spaces. This article focuses on Los Jornaleros del Norte, a California-based band that assumes power in a socio-acoustic space by "Chanting Down the Walls" of detention centers and prisons where migrants from Mexico and Central America are incarcerated, awaiting their deportation.