Soundscapes of Colombia

In this project, I explored different Colombian soundscapes in Bogotà, Medellín and Cartagena. I examined themes of sound-tracking, historical productions of hybrid sounds, Afro-Colombian genres, music and contemporary Colombia music culture through the embodied, somatic practice of listening and recording.

As an outside listener and aspiring anthropologist, I explored sounds become social manifestations of resistance and solidarity in public spaces; how different styles merge in urban and public environments and are mixed with elements of cumbia, jazz, funk and salsa; how and what urban environments reveal about sound and sociality, and how these distance themselves from more natural sounds and environments; how and where certain sounds come up in the cities of Bogotà, Medellin and Cartagena. I produced a hybrid sound-tracking and sound-recording file, which encapsulates Colombian diverse music and dance spectrum, implicated in different histories of resistance and colonialism. To elucidate how soundscapes become an analytical tool to understand history, culture and society—through sound-recording, participant observation, sound-mapping and embodied public ethnographic practice—I decided to focus this presentation on Comuna 13, Medellín. Comuna 13, in fact, is a space that in my opinion reveals knowledge about a spiritually, ecologically, historically and sonically dense environment. The sonic aesthetics of a today's urban-dense environment such as Comuna 13—which manifests its musicality through reproductions through cafés, restaurants, music artists, dancers, tour guides and street vendors—can tell us more about histories of resistance.

Guided by a local resident, Julio*, I learned about Comuna 13, a place that has historically believed to be the "dangerous city on earth." Comuna 13, also known as the San Javier, is an over-populated and low socio-economic neighbourhood on the western side of the city. Comuna 13 was renowned as an important centre for guerrilla, paramilitary, and gang activity. Often believed as a space producing illegal activity, providing easy transportation of drugs, money and guns, I soon learned that Comuna 13 was, first of all, a place where people from lower socio-economic background found refuge in the 1980s, without being "directly managed by the government." After the arrival of guerrillas—such as FARC and ELN left-wing guerrillas, irregular warfare-oriented groups affiliated to Pablo Escobar, started to take ownership of the place—Julio's grandmother (one of the first to settle in the area) recalls "years of war amongst guerrillas and between guerrillas and the government." From 2002, national government interventions occurred with different military operations, including Orión and Mariscal, with joined efforts amongst Colombian police, army and paramilitaries to wipe out the guerrillas from Comuna 13. People got killed, and the wounds persist. As Julio said, "For the government, they represented the best operations. For us, the biggest violation of our human rights." After years of political and military control—including guerrillas, the government, the Army and paramilitaries—national efforts were established to "give back life and dignity to Comuna 13," becoming today one of the safest spots in the country.

While walking around and looking at the walls of Comuna 13, I could perceive how its material, physical and acoustic spaces have become a canvas to depict Comuna 13's difficult past, bringing hope to the residents. Art and music became the vector of political and creative expression, and as a means of expressing local anger and discontent with the violence that had occurred throughout many years, leaving wounds "that will never heal in our grandmothers, parents and ourselves" (Julio). Within the music sounds—which range from Colombian Hip-Hop (the predominant sound, born out of afro-descendent groups first living in Comuna 13) to improvised rapping to reggaeton and salsa—one can perceive a sense of pride and reconciliation in a neighbourhood still scarred by guerrilla, militia and state violence. It is through music, dance and graffiti that locals reclaim their space and history, embodying resistance through their somatic-artistic expression and constructing new futures for their lives and the ones around. As Julio added, in Comuna 13, Hip-Hop specifically—now hybrid in its forms and joined by other sounds—is especially important to pay homage to those survived to violence, more directly so for afro-descendent individuals, who faced additional levels of oppression pre-during-after guerrillas' time.

As Julio told me before I left, "Un pasado triste pero lleno de transformación. Gracias a nuestra musica y danza" (A sad past, but full of transformation. A transformation that happens through music and dance"). It is through the very sounds—weather linguistic, verbal sounds coming from Julio's story, as well as public ones—that I learned a story of resilience and resistance as an outsider, that I was able to see how arts, music and dance can act as a catalysers of socio-political and cultural re-claiming, re-positioning and re-imagination.

In a future project, I would focus on the history of Hip-Hop specifically in Comuna 13, and how afro-descendent identity, hip-hop/break-dance battles, and English Hip-Hop songs in that particular context all intermingle to create a unique soundscape of resistance, resilience and futurism.

Bibliography

https://www.medellindaytrips.com/comuna-13-in-medellin-history-and-present/

https://soundsandcolours.com/articles/colombia/comuna-13-medellins-infamous-community-reinvented-40121/