Music that produces racial inequality? The impact of racist ideas on the conditions of existence of Afro-diasporic musicians in Peru

Project Information

RACISMUS

Grant agreement ID: 101063972

DOI

10.3030/101063972

Project closed

EC signature date 18 July 2022

Start date 7 August 2023

End date 6 August 2025

Funded under

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 199 440,96

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITAT WIEN
Austria

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - RACISMUS (Music that produces racial inequality? The impact of racist ideas on the conditions of existence of Afro-diasporic musicians in Peru)

Reporting period: 2023-08-07 to 2025-08-06

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Aiming to combat racism from ethnomusicological research, RACISMUS analyzes how racist ideas about Afro-Peruvian musical practices historically affected the living conditions of its practitioners, as well as the strategies they employed to resist or mitigate such impacts. Drawing on scholarship in ethnomusicology, history, and critical race theory, RACISMUS aims to produce empirical knowledge about: (a) the historical foundations and transformations of the racist ideas that currently shape the artistic practice of Afro-Peruvian music; (b) how, in shaping their practice, those racist ideas historically impacted the conditions of existence of Afro-Peruvian music practitioners across class, gender, and color in a context of racial inequality and mestizaje; and (c) the agency of Afro-Peruvian music practitioners in addressing those racist ideas and their impact in their practice, including their decision-making processes, strategies, and resources. To do so, RACISMUS studies the history of ideas on black musicality in Peru vis á vis the historical practice and experiences of self-identified practitioners of Afro-Peruvian music. Focusing in the city of Lima between 1900 and 1950, it relies on historical methods and musical analysis.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The activities performed entailed first, the development of a theoretical approach and methodology for the project, which extended throughout the duration of the project as new findings led to theoretical and methodological reformulations. These findings suggested important theoretical insights that required redevelopment as the project progressed. This work resulted in the theoretical introduction of the book, which has been completed to a 70%.
The activities performed also included the collection and analysis of historical data, which became the core of the project’s evidence. Initially allocated to months 3 and 4, the archival search extended throughout the first year of the project. This search entailed, first, archival visits to Peru in November 2023 and June 2024, to collect documents that could not be located in any other archives. Visits included the Peruvian National Library, the Casa de la Cultura Rosa Mercedes Ayarza (key for obtaining the materials related to the third chapter of the book), and some private collections. Second, this search included a visit to the British Library in London to access the field recordings of researcher William Tompkins, as well as key Peruvian literature difficult to obtain anywhere else in Europe. Third, it included the recruiting of two junior historians in Lima to conduct archival research from August to October 2023, and of one junior historian in Lima from April to May 2024, to conduct archival research. The systematization of existing data, and the obtention of new sources, remained an ongoing activity in crafting the chapters of the monograph, extending throughout the entirety of the project.
Finally, these activities included the broad analysis of the data and the writing stage of the project. Initially assigned to start in month 10, these activities extended to the totality of the project as well. This activity produced results that include one monograph draft (70% complete), one scholarly article (submitted to a Q1 journal), one book proposal (under revision in a scholarly press), and nine conference presentations.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The project has made significant progress in delivering the scientific impact promised in the DoA and pushing forward the state of the art about music and racism in Latin America. This progress is visible in two main achievements, which were positively highlighted by the peer reviewers of the RACISMUS’ book proposal in Oxford University Press.
- The first achievement is that RACISMUS has successfully gathered and systematized historical data that robustly documents the historical foundations of the racist ideas that currently shape the artistic practice of Afro-Peruvian music, the way they changed over time, and how they impacted the living conditions of Afro-Peruvian practitioners between 1900 and 1950.
- The second achievement is that this data allowed the researcher to produce a theoretical approach of music and racism in Latin-America, which builds on the idea of racial paternalism. This theoretical approach advances a long-overdue alternative paradigm on music and racism alternative to the one produced in the United States, which dominates the field but responds to that country’s very specific context. The idea of racial paternalism proposes a form of musical racism that manifests not as a will for segregation but as a form of nostalgia for the enslaver past. This approach constitutes a step forward in the understanding of musical racialization in Peru, and the way it permeates the country’s racializing but apparently benevolent appreciation towards Afro-Peruvian heritage.
The readaptation of RACISMUS’ scope from historical-ethnographic to historical entailed a reassessment of the impact of objective 3, namely how Afro-Peruvian music practitioners exert agency in addressing racism in their practice nowadays. As explained in section 1.1. the project has successfully gathered data to demonstrate how this agency took place during the first half of the twentieth century. Due to evident reasons, these findings cannot be extended to explain the artistic agency of contemporary musicians, as RACISMUs originally intended. Yet, this new data does allow for the exploration of connections between the actions of historical and contemporary musicians that engaged with the longstanding presence of systemic racism in Peru. These connections are explored in the epilogue of the book.
So far, the results of RACISMUS have experienced initial academic dissemination via international conference presentations and invited talks. The publication of the monograph, the scholarly article (already submitted), and further publications will expectedly contribute to expand the scientific impact of RACISMUS within and beyond the academic sphere. Building awareness of systemic racism is a gradual process that typically yields positive impact over a longer timeframe than the more immediate outcomes seen in STEM discoveries. In that sense, I expect the societal impact of RACISMUS to start taking place once the publications are released and their evidence-based knowledge make it into the hands of scholars, activists, educators, and policy-makers.

Image for the publishable summary