Unbelonging

Inauthentic Sounds in Mexican and Latinx Aesthetics

Iván A. Ramos

$70.99

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We then advise you accordingly. If the time taken to get any book is too long for you, you can let us know and we will cancel or adjust your order, and refund as required.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

New York University Press
11 July 2023

Performance art; Social & cultural anthropology

Series: Postmillennial Pop

How Latinx artists engage in sonic subcultures to reject neoliberal definitions of belonging

What is the connection between the British rock star Morrissey and the Latinx culture of transnational “unbelonging”? What is the relevance of “dyke chords” in Chicana feminist punk and lesbian dissolution? In what ways can dissonant sounds challenge systems of dominance?

Unbelonging answers these questions and more through an exploration into Mexican and US-based Latinx artists’, writers’, and creators’ use of the discordant sounds of punk, metal, and rock to give voice to the aesthetic of “unbelonging,” a rejection of consumerist and nationalist mentalities. Iván A. Ramos argues that racial identity and belonging have historically required legible forms of performance. Sound has been the primary medium that amplifies and is used to assign cultural citizenship and, for Latinx individuals, legibility is essential to music perceived as traditional and authentic to their national origins. In the context of twentieth-century neoliberal policies, which cemented the concept of “citizen” within logics of consumerism and capitalism, Ramos turns to focus on Latinx artists, writers, and audiences, who produce experimental and often “inauthentic” performances and installations in sonic subcultures to reject new definitions of economic citizenship.

Organized around studies of a number of artists, all whom are explored through the methodological frameworks of sound studies, performance studies, and queer theory, Unbelonging unearths how their very different genres of music share a unifying theme of dissonance. With the backdrop of neoliberalism’s attempt to define citizenship in relation to economic and cultural legibility, Unbelonging offers an urgent analysis of how these oft-overlooked queer and feminist performers and fans used sonic illegibility to challenge gender norms, official definitions of citizenship, and narratives of assimilation. Ultimately, these forms of inauthenticity move beyond negation and become ways to imagine alternative realities.

By: Iván A. Ramos
Imprint: New York University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Volume: 28
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
Weight: 376g
ISBN: 9781479808465
ISBN 10: 1479808466
Series: Postmillennial Pop
Pages: 240
Publication Date: 11 July 2023
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Iván A. Ramos is Assistant Professor in the Department of Theater Arts and Performance Studies at Brown University. He received his PhD in Performance Studies with a Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality from UC Berkeley. His writing has appeared in several journals, including Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory, Studies in Gender and Sexuality, and ASAP/Journal. He was a contributor to the award winning catalog for the exhibition Axis Mundo: Queer Networks in Chicano L.A. sponsored by the Getty Foundation, and he also has articles forthcoming in Turning Archival (Duke University Press).

Reviews for Unbelonging: Inauthentic Sounds in Mexican and Latinx Aesthetics

"""Sound is the ground for Iván Ramos’s brilliant writing on visual art, performance, and subcultures that radiate out from Mexico, Los Angeles, and through the rest of Latina/o America. Ramos’s sonic grounding, actual and conceptual, is far from stable. Records melt, checkpoints are refused, the inauthentic is genuine, geopolitical narratives shake, punk is a Latina/o given rather than a something taken. The castaways of neoliberalism are key protagonists. The illegible artists and audiences and the bootleg tapes that live and play in this indispensable book push Ramos towards transformative theories about performance and aesthetics. Readers will no doubt become forever altered having come to know them intimately through Ramos’s beautiful treatise on unbelonging."" -- Alexandra Vazquez, New York University ""A lucid and theoretically informed account of how listening practices between Mexico and the United States can work in opposition to the national popular and its regimes of affect. Unbelonging sets the record straight on whitewashed accounts of rock and punk that ignore how Latinx subjects took up subcultural spaces and stances. Taking time to ‘feel brown’ beyond the boundaries of race and nation, Iván Ramos delivers up a new and vibrant account of aesthetic dissensus that will forward queer-of-color critique."" -- Tavia Amolo Ochieng' Nyong'o, Yale University"