In case you have missed it, Robin Moore has a new book exploring the music of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic.  Rather than focusing narrowly on a single island nation, the wider Caribbean focus is welcome, and as always, he writes elegantly and succinctly.  And the book includes a sleeve with full-length CD as well!  Music in the Hispanic Caribbean: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture, 2010, Oxford University Press.

Publisher's description:

The Spanish-speaking islands of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic make up a relatively small region, but their musical and cultural traditions have had a dramatic, sweeping impact on the world. The first brief, stand-alone volume to explore the music of these three islands, Music in the Hispanic Caribbean provides a vibrant introduction to diverse musical styles including salsa, merengue, reggaeton, plena, Latin jazz, and the bolero.

Ethnomusicologist Robin Moore employs three themes in his survey of Hispanic Caribbean music:

• The cultural legacy of the slave trade
• The creolization of Caribbean musical styles
• Diaspora, migration, and movement

Each theme lends itself to a discussion of the region's traditional musical genres as well as its more contemporary forms. The author draws on his extensive regional fieldwork, offering accounts of local performances, interviews with key performers, and vivid illustrations.

A compelling, comprehensive review, Music in the Hispanic Caribbean is ideal for introductory undergraduate courses in world music or ethnomusicology and for upper-level courses on Caribbean and Latin American music and/or culture.

Packaged with a 70-minute CD containing musical examples, the text features numerous listening activities that actively engage students with the music. The companion website (www.oup.com/us/globalmusic) includes supplementary materials for instructors.

It is a great pleasure to present Mette Berg’s new book, Diasporic Generations: Memory, Politics, and Nation (Berghan Books 2011) among Cubans in Spain.  Many of us know  Mette either personally or through her articles, and have found her particular ethnographic  focus–Cubans residing in Spain–to greatly enrich the conventional centering of the diaspora around Miami.

from the publisher’s website:

“Highlighting key generational differences, dynamics and trajectories, Mette Louise Berg’s work adds an exceptionally significant approach to studies on diasporas and transnational migration. Her case study of Cubans in Spain also interestingly reflects deep changes in Cuban society over a number of decades. By way of developing a more comprehensive understanding of these topics, this book is essential reading for students and advanced scholars alike.”  ·  Steve Vertovec, Max-Planck-Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity

“Mette Louise Berg’s work is a productive, insightful, and timely intervention in the study of the Cuban diaspora and other contemporary transnational movements…an original and substantial contribution to the scholarly literature on migration.”  ·  Jorge Duany, University of Puerto Rico

“…well-written and intelligent, and deals with the Cuban diaspora in Spain, about which little is known. The author excellently locates her study within interesting general literature on memory, homelands, nationalism, and diasporas…it is superb.”  ·  Susan Eckstein, Boston University

Interpretations of the background to the Cuban diaspora – a political revolution and the subsequent radical transformation of the society and economy towards socialism – are politicised and highly contested. The Miami-based Cuban diaspora has had extraordinary success in putting its case high on the US political agenda and in capturing world media attention, but in the process the multiplicity of experiences within the diaspora has been overshadowed. This book gives voice to diasporic Cubans living in Spain, the former colonial ruler of Cuba. By focusing on their lived experiences of displacement, the book brings to light imaginative, narrative re-creations of the nation from afar. Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, the book argues that the Cuban diaspora in Spain consists of three diasporic generations, generated through distinct migratory experiences. This constitutes an important step forward in understanding the dynamics of memory-making and social differentiation within diasporas, and in appreciating why people within the same diaspora engage in different modes of transnational practices and homeland relations.

Mette Louise Berg is a lecturer in the anthropology of migration at the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on memory, diaspora, transnationalism and intergenerational dynamics.

Table of Contents after the jump:

Read the rest of this entry »

I have recently been introduced to the Americas Media Initiative (AMI) – Cuba Media Project and have been particularly impressed with the documentaries they are distributing, from TV Serrana and elsewhere, for quite reasonable fees.  Indeed, fellow ethnographers and observers of contemporary Cuban culture, recent documentaries from rural and eastern Cuba such as Un Puente sobre el Rio (dir. Rigoberto Jiménez, 2009, 30 min) and on controversial topics, such as Raza (dir. Eric Corvalán Pellé, 2008, 35 min.) and Zona de Silencio (Karel Ducasse, 2007, 40 min.) on the topic of censorship, are absolutely worth watching, and since they are subtitled, great classroom resources as well.

And so it was with surprise that I recently received an announcement from A.M.I. on the release of the documentary, Freddy Ilanga: Che’s Swahili Translator, directed by anthropologist Katrin Hansing.  Have not yet been able to screen this myself, so here is A.M.I.’s description of the film:

In April 1965, Freddy Ilanga, a fifteen-year-old Congolese youth, became Che Guevara’s personal Swahili teacher and translator during the latter’s secret mission in the Congo to train anti-Mobutu rebels. After seven intense months by Che Guevara’s side, the Cuban authorities sent Freddy to Cuba. During his early years, Freddy thought that his stay in Cuba would be temporary. However, 40 years passed, during which time he lost all contact with his family and homeland. That is until 2003, when he received an unexpected phone call from Bukavu, his home town. His family had finally found him…

Che’s Swahili Translator is a documentary about Freddy Ilanga, an African man whose life was abruptly transformed through a chance encounter with one of the great icons of the 20th Century, and which has predominantly been determined by the power struggles of the Cold War and the Cuban Revolution. It is a story about migration and displacement and the high human costs of exile and family separation.

Although we do not typically focus on the fine arts in the strict sense of the term, for those interested in--or struck by--boundary-crossing cultural productions, the work of Cuban and Cuban-American artists such as José Bedia may well be particularly compelling, and if you happen to be in the Los Angeles area this fall, this is an exhibition to investigate.  Opening Sept. 17th at the Fowler Museum with a conversation between Bedia and curators Judith Bettelheim and Janet Catherine Berlo, the exhibition will be on display from Sept. 18 through Jan. 8, 2012.  Here are two examples of Bedia's work, courtesy of the Fowler Museum.  Above:  Pájaro que busca otro horizonte (The Bird Who Seeks Another Land), 1998, Acrylic on canvas, 231 x 414 cm, Berezdivin Collection, San Juan, Puerto Rico.  Below: Piango piango llega lejos (Step by Step You Can Go Far), 2000, Acrylic stain and oil pastel on canvas, Diam.: 245.4 cm, Collection of the Ackland Art Museum, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Ackland Fund, Photograph courtesy of Galeria Ramis Barquet, New York: