Perspectives on Afro-Peruvian Music and Online Quechua and Aymara, September 21, 2007
In the first session of the semester, our new core members, Javier León and Serafín Coronel-Molina, presented a sampling of their current research interests. In the first presentation, Javier León, Assistant Professor in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, spoke about his research on Afro-Peruvian music and shared with us a set of wonderful sound recordings illustrating his main points. León presented the argument that contemporary Afro-Peruvian music is the result of a revival process attempting to recover Peru’s “black identity.” These efforts at reclaiming negritude in Peru have been recognized by the government and have led to an institutionalization of specific musical genres as “authentic” and “typical” of the African-origin population on the coast.
León also explored how these musical forms are being affected by new generations of musicians who bring new instruments and influences into the tradition. These younger musicians are active in creating fusions with jazz, hip-hop, salsa, and other musical idioms, but still seek to retain the Afro-Peruvian sound. Controversy swirls around these practices as older musicians express concerns that such innovations will cause Afro-Peruvian music to disappear as a distinct tradition. The second presentation was by Serafín Coronel–Molina, Professor in the School of Education at Indiana University. Coronel-Molina presented his ideas about the “intellectualization” of Quechua and Aymara, and communicated his passionate belief that these languages must obtain an online presence if they are to flourish in the coming decades. Coronel-Molina drew upon his extensive experience in language politics and policies to make the case for cultivating Quechua and Aymara as languages with a robust profile in all possible arenas of communication. Discussion after his presentation delved into a range of issues that arise in these matters – how the introduction of writing, and now of digital formatting, affects languages and communities; how we might move to a consensual system for writing the different dialects of Quechua, even within circumscribed geographical areas. There are many challenges facing both Afro-Peruvian musicians and indigenous language activists, many of them captured in the all-purpose query: how can local constituencies interact with modernity in ways that will enhance their circumstances without depriving them of access to their cultural heritages?