Digital indigestion

Cumbia, class and a post-digital ethos in Buenos Aires

Bibliographic Data

ID4768064
AuthorsGeoffrey Baker (0000-0003-1586-6985, Royal Holloway University of London, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume34
Issue2
Pages175-196
Publication date2015-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePopular Music (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0261-1430 • E-ISSN: 1474-0095
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s026114301500001x
OpenAlexW2142773705
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited18

This article focuses on three recent manifestations of cumbia in Buenos Aires, Argentina: digital cumbia released by ZZK Records; retro cumbia orchestras; and a newer strand of digital cumbia, música turra. The first two are identified with the middle class, whereas the third emerged from the clases populares ('popular classes'). Música turra is underpinned by government policies towards digital inclusion, while middle-class incursions into the traditionally working-class sphere of cumbia, too, suggest increasing social cohesion. However, the digital fascination of música turra contrasts with an embrace of the analogue and acoustic in middle-class cumbia. These developments point to the emergence of a post-digital ethos and a shift from a digital to a post-digital divide, also running along class lines, analysed here through a Bourdieusian lens of taste and distinction. While transnational in nature, the post-digital ethos appears in Buenos Aires in a distinctive local form, articulated to growing Latin Americanism and post-neoliberalism on the part of the middle class

Class (philosophy · Epistemology · Ethos · Media studies · Middle class · Political science · Prosperity · Sociology · Cultural Industries and Urban Development · Law · Music History and Culture · Philosophy · Social and Cultural Dynamics

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub