Sounding Indigenous: Authenticity in Bolivian Music Performance - Tapa dura

"A perfectly executed study about authenticity of musical expressions in Bolivia's pluri-multicultural encounters with tradition and modernity. Bravo! An excellent performance." -- Enrique Mayer, Yale University"A sensitive and wide-ranging study of the conundrums of national imagining and the politics of musical performance. Michelle Bigenho's fascinating account combines anthropological insight with first-hand experience as a 'Bolivian' musician." -- Olivia Harris, Professor of Social Anthropology at Goldsmiths College, University of London"This sensitive, astute, and nuanced ethnography takes us on a intriguing excursion into how national modernity intersects with indigenous modernities in the construction of a sense of nationhood in Latin America." -- Joanne Rappaport, Georgetown University

Sounding Indigenous explores the relations between music, people, and places through analysis of Bolivian music performances: by a non-governmental organization involved in musical activities, by a music performing ensemble, and by the people living in two rural areas of Potosi. Based on research conducted between 1993 and 1995, the book frames debates of Bolivian national and indigenous identities in terms of different attitudes people assume towards cultural and artistic authenticity. The book makes unique contributions through an emphasis on music as sensory experience, through its theorization of authenticity in relation to music, through its combined focus on different kinds of Bolivian music (indigenous, popular, avant-garde), through its combined focus on music performance and the Bolivian nation, and through its interpretation of local, national, and transnational fieldwork experiences.