Hettie Malcomson
Biographic Data
| ID | 140946 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Hettie Malcomson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Hettie |
| FAMILY NAME | Malcomson |
| SIGNATURE | MALCOMSON H |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Cambridge |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2960-4399 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 6 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 13 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 6 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
On Sensationalism, Violence and Academic Knowledge
This essay interrogates methodological, analytical and representational issues that continue to challenge scholars addressing bellicose violence: Is it ethical to write about terror, pain and despair from afar? Can sensationalism ever be justified in analyses of bellicose violence? What kind of silences might we allow for? These questions are explored in relation to necropolitical Mexico, drawing from empirical research with musicians commissione…
Negotiating Violence and Creative Agency in Commissioned Mexican Narco Rap
This article explores agency as an ability to act and exert power creatively when failure implies literal death. It draws on interviews with an ex-narco and rappers who willingly accept narco-commissions in 2010s Tamaulipas, Mexico, a context where precarity and necropolitical logics prevail. It asserts that many rappers exert power creatively, despite the risks. Rappers shape narco-aesthetics by determining the lyrical and sonic elements of song…
Aficionados, Academics, and Danzón Expertise: Exploring Hierarchies in Popular Music Knowledge Production
Amateur scholars, such as aficionados, fans, intellectuals, are rarely valued in the twenty-first-century academy, despite their often-encyclopedic knowledge. In this paper, I focus on Mexican aficionados of the popular Cuban music danzón to explore how these mostly older men manage social contexts where they are often marginalized. Drawing on Bourdieu, I examine how danzón aficionados negotiate their field of expertise by employing overlapping s…
Composing Individuals: Ethnographic Reflections on Success and Prestige in the British New Music Network
In contrast to established musicians, lesser-known composers have received scant attention in art music scholarship. This article, based on an ethnographic study, considers how a group of British composers construed ideas of success and prestige, which I analyse in terms of anthropological writings on exchange, Bourdieusian symbolic economies, and Foucauldian notions of disciplinary power. Prestige was ascribed to composers who created 'interesti…
New generations, older bodies: Danzón, age and 'cultural rescue' in the Port of Veracruz, Mexico
Understandings and discourses about age have tended to be instrumental to popular music in terms of production, promotion and consumption, and many studies of popular music have taken younger people, and especially 'youth' cultures, as their subject matter. Where older people have been considered, the focus has mostly been retrospective, that is on their experiences when young and their attitudes to contemporary 'youth' cultures, rather than rela…
The 'routes' and 'roots' ofdanzón: A Critique of the History of a Genre
In this article, I examine the history of a genre that spans several continents and several centuries. I bring together material from Mexico, Cuba, France and the UK to create anew, expand upon and critique the 'standard' histories of danzón narrated by Mexico's danzón experts (and others). In these 'standard' histories, origins and nationality are key to the constitution of genres which are racialised and moralised for political ends. Danzón, it…
Negotiating Violence and Creative Agency in Commissioned Mexican Narco Rap
This article explores agency as an ability to act and exert power creatively when failure implies literal death. It draws on interviews with an ex-narco and rappers who willingly accept narco-commissions in 2010s Tamaulipas, Mexico, a context where precarity and necropolitical logics prevail. It asserts that many rappers exert power creatively, despite the risks. Rappers shape narco-aesthetics by determining the lyrical and sonic elements of song…
The 'routes' and 'roots' ofdanzón: A Critique of the History of a Genre
In this article, I examine the history of a genre that spans several continents and several centuries. I bring together material from Mexico, Cuba, France and the UK to create anew, expand upon and critique the 'standard' histories of danzón narrated by Mexico's danzón experts (and others). In these 'standard' histories, origins and nationality are key to the constitution of genres which are racialised and moralised for political ends. Danzón, it…
Aficionados, Academics, and Danzón Expertise: Exploring Hierarchies in Popular Music Knowledge Production
Amateur scholars, such as aficionados, fans, intellectuals, are rarely valued in the twenty-first-century academy, despite their often-encyclopedic knowledge. In this paper, I focus on Mexican aficionados of the popular Cuban music danzón to explore how these mostly older men manage social contexts where they are often marginalized. Drawing on Bourdieu, I examine how danzón aficionados negotiate their field of expertise by employing overlapping s…
Composing Individuals: Ethnographic Reflections on Success and Prestige in the British New Music Network
In contrast to established musicians, lesser-known composers have received scant attention in art music scholarship. This article, based on an ethnographic study, considers how a group of British composers construed ideas of success and prestige, which I analyse in terms of anthropological writings on exchange, Bourdieusian symbolic economies, and Foucauldian notions of disciplinary power. Prestige was ascribed to composers who created 'interesti…
New generations, older bodies: Danzón, age and 'cultural rescue' in the Port of Veracruz, Mexico
Understandings and discourses about age have tended to be instrumental to popular music in terms of production, promotion and consumption, and many studies of popular music have taken younger people, and especially 'youth' cultures, as their subject matter. Where older people have been considered, the focus has mostly been retrospective, that is on their experiences when young and their attitudes to contemporary 'youth' cultures, rather than rela…
The 'routes' and 'roots' ofdanzón: A Critique of the History of a Genre
In this article, I examine the history of a genre that spans several continents and several centuries. I bring together material from Mexico, Cuba, France and the UK to create anew, expand upon and critique the 'standard' histories of danzón narrated by Mexico's danzón experts (and others). In these 'standard' histories, origins and nationality are key to the constitution of genres which are racialised and moralised for political ends. Danzón, it…
New generations, older bodies: Danzón, age and 'cultural rescue' in the Port of Veracruz, Mexico
Understandings and discourses about age have tended to be instrumental to popular music in terms of production, promotion and consumption, and many studies of popular music have taken younger people, and especially 'youth' cultures, as their subject matter. Where older people have been considered, the focus has mostly been retrospective, that is on their experiences when young and their attitudes to contemporary 'youth' cultures, rather than rela…
Composing Individuals: Ethnographic Reflections on Success and Prestige in the British New Music Network
In contrast to established musicians, lesser-known composers have received scant attention in art music scholarship. This article, based on an ethnographic study, considers how a group of British composers construed ideas of success and prestige, which I analyse in terms of anthropological writings on exchange, Bourdieusian symbolic economies, and Foucauldian notions of disciplinary power. Prestige was ascribed to composers who created 'interesti…
Aficionados, Academics, and Danzón Expertise: Exploring Hierarchies in Popular Music Knowledge Production
Amateur scholars, such as aficionados, fans, intellectuals, are rarely valued in the twenty-first-century academy, despite their often-encyclopedic knowledge. In this paper, I focus on Mexican aficionados of the popular Cuban music danzón to explore how these mostly older men manage social contexts where they are often marginalized. Drawing on Bourdieu, I examine how danzón aficionados negotiate their field of expertise by employing overlapping s…
Negotiating Violence and Creative Agency in Commissioned Mexican Narco Rap
This article explores agency as an ability to act and exert power creatively when failure implies literal death. It draws on interviews with an ex-narco and rappers who willingly accept narco-commissions in 2010s Tamaulipas, Mexico, a context where precarity and necropolitical logics prevail. It asserts that many rappers exert power creatively, despite the risks. Rappers shape narco-aesthetics by determining the lyrical and sonic elements of song…
On Sensationalism, Violence and Academic Knowledge
This essay interrogates methodological, analytical and representational issues that continue to challenge scholars addressing bellicose violence: Is it ethical to write about terror, pain and despair from afar? Can sensationalism ever be justified in analyses of bellicose violence? What kind of silences might we allow for? These questions are explored in relation to necropolitical Mexico, drawing from empirical research with musicians commissione…
Music History and Culture (5 works) · Political science (5 works) · Sociology (5 works) · Gender Studies (3 works) · History (3 works) · History (3 works) · Law (3 works) · Law (3 works) · Social science (3 works) · Art (2 works)