Can't Beat Me Own Drum in Me Own Native Land: Calypso Music and Tourism in the Panamanian Atlantic Coast
The connection between music and identity is especially evident in the African diaspora. In the Caribbean, music is particularly important to the cultural and ethnic identities of black populations. This article discusses the multiple meanings of music for Panamanian Afro-Antillean identity in the C...
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Published in | Anthropological quarterly Vol. 79; no. 4; pp. 633 - 665 |
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Main Author | |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Washington, DC
George Washington University Institute for Ethnographic Research
01.10.2006
Catholic University of America |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | The connection between music and identity is especially evident in the African diaspora. In the Caribbean, music is particularly important to the cultural and ethnic identities of black populations. This article discusses the multiple meanings of music for Panamanian Afro-Antillean identity in the Caribbean, by placing musical genres such as calypso, soka, and reggae, in the context of tourism development I argue that Afro-Antillean musical genres as well as appropriations of "national" musical genres have provided black populations in the Panamanian Caribbean with ways to assert distinctive identities in the Panamanian cultural mosaic. Afro-Antilleans are experiencing a cultural revival of their Antillean identities, through the process of tourism consumption. They are also asserting their identities as a cosmopolitan group, with enough transnational connections to access musical worlds that are not the domain of other ethnic groups in the country. Consequently, Afro-Antilleans are using music to reposition themselves nationally through participation in transnational circuits. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-2 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-1 content type line 23 ObjectType-Article-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 |
ISSN: | 0003-5491 1534-1518 1534-1518 |
DOI: | 10.1353/anq.2006.0050 |