Musical Performance and the Changing City

Abstract

This chapter explores the relationship between migration, musical practices, and the urban experience, taking the elusive Cuban diaspora settled in the Spanish city of Barcelona as its case study. It examines the role of music in creating new social spaces where migrants become visible (and clearly audible) both to themselves and to others. The ethnographic research results highlight the significance of music as a resource for developing new social spaces in which migrant groups and individuals can exercise their agency within and toward the “host” society. The case of the Cuban diaspora illustrates how participation in certain musical practices affects the way migrants live and experience the new urban environment they inhabit. It also illustrates how this impacts on the social, cultural, and musical life of the city, contributing to the material and symbolic transformation of a contemporary metropolis such as Barcelona.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 32 citations exist upstream.