The ethnographer Áfurugu: methodological reflections from experiences with Garifuna musicality
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.1981-3341.pontourbe.2024.228278Keywords:
Garifuna, Ethnomusicology, Bimusicality, Ethnography, Afro-AmericaAbstract
The article explores and reformulates the concept of bimusicality in ethnomusicology, focusing on its relevance to the study of audio-oriented cultures, presenting as a case study the author’s experiences with the Garifuna population of Livingston, Guatemala. Through an ethnographic account and a bibliographical review of the main theoretical frameworks in which this methodological practice is generated, it proposes a reformulation of bimusicality, considering that it does not only involve the technical ability to play instruments, to analyse and/or understand the native musical language, but it also requires a deep understanding of the complex web of cultural meanings in which music is inserted. The text suggests approaching the field through participant observation-listening of culturally differentiated musicality, underlining the importance of direct experience in accessing a community’s cultural knowledge. Combining concepts of interpretive anthropology and native logic, it also proposes the concept of the Áfurugu as a way to integrate memory, emotion and music into ethnographic narrative. The article advocates a methodology that promotes an experiential and intersubjective musical knowledge, capable of overcoming the limitations of passive observation and decontextualized transcription.
Downloads
References
ACOSTA, Leonardo (1982). Música y descolonización. México DF: Presencia Latinoamericana.
ARRIVILLAGA CORTÉS, Alfonso (1988a). Apuntes sobre la música de tambor entre los garífuna de Guatemala. Tradiciones de Guatemala 29: 85-87.
ARRIVILLAGA CORTÉS, Alfonso (1988b). Introducción a la fenomenología y organología de la música de tambor entre los Garífuna de Guatemala. Tradiciones de Guatemala 30:75-94.
AUGÉ, Marc (2012). La vida en doble. Etnología, viaje, escritura. Buenos Aires: Paidos.
BARZ, Gregory y COOLEY, Timothy J. (2008) “Casting Shadows: Fieldwork Is Dead! Longlive Fieldwork!” En Shadows in the field. New perspectives for fieldwork in ethnomusicology, editado por Barz, Gregory y Cooley, Timothy, 3-24. New York: Oxford.
BLACKING, John (2010 [1973]). ¿Hay música en el hombre? Madrid: Alianza.
BLACKING, John (2001 [1967]). “El análisis cultural de la música”. En Las culturas musicales. Lecturas de etnomusicología, editado por Cruces, Francisco et.al, SIbE-Sociedad de Etnomusicología. Madrid: Trotta.
BOAS, Franz (1964) “Linguistics and Ethnology”. En Lenguage in Culture & Society. A reader in Linguistics and Anthropology, editado por Dell Hymes, 15-26. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers.
CARDOSO DE OLIVEIRA, Roberto (2004). “El trabajo del antropólogo: mirar, escuchar, escribir”. Ava, Revista de Antropología 5: 55-68.
CHERNOFF, John Miller. (1979). African Rhythm and African Sensibility. Aesthetics and Social Action in African Music Idioms. Chicago: University of Chicago.
CONRAD, Joseph (1993 [1896]). Una avanzada del progreso. Madrid: Alianza.
DA MATTA, Roberto (2004). “El oficio del etnólogo o cómo tener ‘Anthropological Blues’”. En Constructores de Otredad, organizado por Boivi, M. et.al, 172-178. Buenos Aires: Antropofagia.
FELD, Steven (2012 [1982]). Sound and Sentiment. Birds, Weeping, Poetics, and Song in Kaluli Expression. London: Duke University Press.
FELD, Steven (2013). “Una acustemología de la selva tropical”. Revista Colombiana de Antropología 49, (1): 217-239
FELD, Steven (2001 [1995]). “El sonido como sistema simbólico: El tambor kaluli”. En Las culturas musicales. Lecturas de etnomusicología, coordinado por Francisco Cruces Villalobos, 331-356. Madrid: Trotta.
GEERTZ, Clifford (1989). El antropólogo como autor. Barcelona: Paidós.
GEERTZ, Clifflord (2005). La interpretación de las Culturas. Barcelona: Gedisa.
GUBER, Rosana (2009). El salvaje metropolitano. Reconstrucción del conocimiento social en el trabajo de campo. Buenos Aires: Paidós.
GREENE, Oliver N. (2008). “Garifuna Music in Belize”. En Concise Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, 234-239. New York: Routledge.
HOOD, Mantle (1960). “The Challenge of `Bi-Musicality´”. Ethnomusicology IV (2): 55-59.
IHDE, Don (2007 [1976]). Listening and Voice. Phenomenologies of Sound. New York: State University of New York.
JONES, Arthur M (1954). “African Rhythm”. Africa. Journal of the international African Institute 24 (1): 26-27.
KISLIUK, Michelle (2008). (Un)doing Fieldwork: Sharing Songs, Sharing Lives. En Shadows in the field. New perspectives for fieldwork in ethnomusicology, editado por Barz, Gregory y Cooley, Timothy, 183-205. New York: Oxford.
KROTZ, Esteban (1994). “Alteridad y pregunta antropológica”. Alteridades 4(8): 5-11.
MERRIAM, Alan (1964). The Anthropology of Music. Evanston, IL: Northwstern University Press.
PEEK, Philip M. (1994). “The sounds of silence: cross-world communication and the auditory arts in African societies”. American Ethnologist 21 (3): 474-494.
PÉREZ GUARNIERI, Augusto (2011). Ubafu: el legado de los abuelos garífunas. La Plata: Edulp.
PÉREZ GUARNIERI, Augusto (2021). “Garawoun: Revisitando la bibliografía sobre el tambor garífuna desde una experiencia etnográfica audiocentrada”. Música e Investigación 29. Instituto Nacional de Investigación “Carlos Vega”, pp. 91-130.
PÉREZ GUARNIERI, Augusto (2023). “Ugulendu: tambores, sonajas, cantos y sonofanías de la espiritualidad garífuna guatemalteca”. Resonancias 53: 93-113. Santiago: Instituto de Música, Facultad de Artes de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.
RICE, Timothy (2014). Ethnomusicology. A very short introduction. New York: Oxford.
RUIZ, Irma (1989). “Viejas y nuevas preocupaciones de los etnomusicólogos”. Revista del Instituto de Investigación Musicológica “Carlos Vega” 10: 259-272.
RUIZ, Irma (1992). “Viejas y nuevas preocupaciones de los etnomusicólogos (2º parte)”. Revista del Instituto de Investigación Musicológica “Carlos Vega” 12: 7-27.
SACHS, Curt. (1947). Historia Universal de los Instrumentos Musicales. Buenos Aires: Centurión.
SÁNCHEZ, Juan Carlos y PÉREZ GUARNIERI, Augusto (2018). Palabra(s) de Ounagülei(s). La espiritualidad garífuna de Livingston, Guatemala. Guatemala: FLACSO.
SCHAFER, Muray (1977). The tuning of the world. New York: Knopf.
STOLLER, Paul (1989). The taste of ethnographic things. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press.
STOLLER, Paul (1996). “Sounds and Things. Pulsations of power in Songhay”. En The performance of Healing, editado por Laderman, C y Roseman, M., 165-184. New York-London: Routledge.
TAYLOR, Douglas (1951). The black caribs of British Honduras. New York: Viking Fund Publications in Athropology.
TITON, Jeff Todd (1989). Ethnomusicology as the Study of People Making Music. Paper delivered at the annual conference of the Northeast Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology, Hartford, Connecticut, April 22.
TITON, Jeff Todd (1995). “Bimusicality as metaphor”. The Journal of American Folklore 108 (429): 287-297.
TITON, Jeff Todd (2009). “Knowing Fieldwork”. En Shadows in the field. New perspectives for fieldwork in ethnomusicology, editado por Barz, Gregory y Cooley, Timothy J., 25-43. New York: Oxford.
ZUCKERKANDL, Victor (1958). Sound and Symbol. Music and the External World. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Augusto Perez Guarnieri
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
