I can’t express how relieved I am to finish this term. Not because of this particular class, but because this past year with online classes has been quite exhausting. In fact, I had my first zoom-teacher experience today as I was substituting a high school Swedish teacher. It was weird and so awkward since nobody had their cameras on and barely answered my questions, and therefore I’m so appreciative of every teacher and professor who has been able to do this the entire year lol.

Anyway, I’m glad that I took this class, because I have mostly enjoyed the topics and the discussions we’ve have had throughout the term. During this time, it has been so crucial to have fun and interesting classes to maintain some level of motivation. I had my doubts when I chose this class because I was expecting something quite different, and therefore I believe my understanding of culture and its different manifestations in Latin America has expanded a lot. It’s not so much about Bad Bunny, asados, bachata and football anymore (lol just joking, I think I knew more than that…) but so many more things! I think I especially enjoyed the reading about Mafalda, and my final project that taught me a lot about the Indigenous culture in the Andes. I was quite surprised that I ended up choosing ritual battles as my final project topic since it wasn’t really anything that I was super interested in, or something that I knew a lot about before, but it turned out to be super cool topic to do research on! I kind of hoped we would have covered some social movements during this term, but I also recognize that it’s hard to pick from so many great options.

Anyway, thanks everybody for a great term and hope to see you some time in the future!

Although I have never seen a narconovela in my life, I have had my share of telenovelas that were an essential part of dinner/lunch tables (whenever there wasn’t football) and siestas of most days. I’m not going to lie, they have always confused me. In my perspective, they had clumsy acting, chaotic plot twists and a weird style of filming, like excessively zooming into the facial expressions etc. However, while I was amused by the novelas, my argentine counterparts were immersed into the shows and their dramatic plot twists. I remember asking how they could take them seriously since they were so chaotic, but they thought that was exactly what made them entertaining. Morgan states: “[…] the schoolboy’s delivery was insufficiently dramatic, thereby highlighting the fact that much of the novela audience expects theatricality and melodrama, something overblown and larger than life. From this perspective, reality was seen to be intruding on artifice rather than the other way round. (p. 72)”, which made me realize that they aren’t even supposed to be realistic, but rather extremely dramatic. However, I still wonder why is this essential in novelas to be “credible” but not in other types of films or series?

Moreover, while reading Nick Morgans article I was reminded about the narco corridos we studied in the beginning of the course. The people he interviewed at the end of his article had similar reactions to the novelas as people would have with the corridos: a mixture of shame and enjoyment. In both cases people would acknowledge (although some more vaguely than others) that they represented an aspect of their reality, but at the same time they would feel this urge to resign from it by saying they didn’t enjoy them, or that they were only “stories”. On the other hand, some would state that they were super entertaining or that they accurately portrayed their country and its flaws. I wonder what are some similarities/differences between narcocorridos & narconovelas, and why do you think they evoke contradictory feelings in people despite their popularity?

I really enjoyed Isabella Cosse’s writing in “Mafalda: Middle Class, Everyday Life, and Politics in Argentina, 1964-1973.” I especially enjoyed the way that exploring Mafalda, this pretty adorable and seemingly innocent cartoon, was a way to better understand the Argentinian middle class and the political circumstances in that time period. At first, I was worried that it was just going to be a technical analysis of the comic itself, but I actually found myself learning a lot from the Argentinian political history as well.

I have probably read millions of comic stripes in my lifetime, from Donald Duck to some random comics that appear on the newspaper every morning. To be honest, I don’t really care about them, and while many people skip the newspaper to read the comics, I tend to skip the comics.. However, it struck me in this weeks readings the amount of information that can actually be delivered in a short comic stripe. I mean, it’s not merely what the characters say or do, but the characters existence itself and the positioning and size of the characters convey a lot of information. Many of those meanings may even slip if the reader isn’t familial with the comic or the context in which it appears, which makes it really powerful. For example, without this contextualization of Mafalda, I would have probably read the comic stripes as “cute” or “entertaining”. Moreover, I found the character Mafalda very strategic. Although I kept wondering why the author chose a female character, I thought Mafalda being a child allowed more room for the author to explore. People empathize naturally with children and may excuse some behaviour “just because they are children”, and thus Mafalda could say radical things and people wouldn’t get agitated. Furthermore, delivering social or political critique from a childlike perspective probably makes it easier for people to digest, making serious things seem even a bit “silly”.

Finally, I wanna say that I felt really bad for the author himself. That responsibility and the conflicting expectations that were laid on him were just unfair. It struck me that the guerrillas criticized him for not making Mafalda even more political and radical, clearly recognizing the power this little comic had. Thus, I wonder if comics are more powerful or resilient against censorship than other forms of art? What is the role of artists in political struggle? Do you think it’s their responsibility to engage in political struggle?

I was excited for this weeks since am a fan of Latin American music!  My love for Latin American music started during my exchange year and it has been upheld by various Latin parties here in Finland as well as by various dance classes I have taken. Initially I thought I would be doing my final project on music, and so I read a bit about bachata, cumbia and capoeira before settling on a completely different topic. Anyway, the short bit of research I did, together with this weeks material, completely changed my understanding of where Latin American music has its roots. In my little mind I had always thought that, for example tango and bachata were cultural products of the elites, and I could have not been more wrong?? Somehow the image they carry is very expensive (especially tango)? Turned out that many of the music styles emerged in the lower classes and were a form of resistance and even survival, as we saw in the documentary by Kaurismäki. Much like football, music provided people with escape, a coping mechanism, entertainment and sense of community. However, as many cultural elements of the lower classes, their music has been heavily stigmatized and disregarded by the upper classes, which can be even seen in the lyrics of some bachata songs:

(Romeo Santos Millonario)

“La he visto desde niño y no me he atrevido a hablar
Porque su mundo es fino, muy selecto
Yo soy un vagabundo para su clase social
Y en su familia odian bachateros”

It strikes me how today many of them are globally famous dance & music styles that people from all over the world enjoy and consume, without barely any connection to their roots. Somehow they have been able to escape the stigma and been accepted by the elites, but the question is how? Or is it possible that the perception is different in their country of origin than what it is abroad? Also I wonder what are the similarities/differences between sport and music in a society?

I have never been a fan of football, and I have never really understood what it is about football that attracts people. I mean, people chase a ball and kick it around. People are insane about football, especially in Argentina where people would go out on streets and rob stores and start fights after winning or losing a match. Moreover, I have never understood why is there so much money in football? I simply can’t understand why we are willing to pay these ball chasers sh*tloads of money while for example essential workers are barely making it.

Anyway, those were my thoughts around football before reading this weeks article “Soccer in Sun and Shadow”. I thought it was quite cool how the entire sport was broken down into pieces, and suddenly football wasn’t just a sport – it was performance, gender, language, history, money, work and so much more. In other words, the simple sport of football carries so much meaning for everyone involved, even for the ball itself. Something I found interesting was that the meaning conveyed in this article wasn’t a glorious one, it was rather filled with misery for basically everyone involved. The players were contrasted with human trafficking and forced labour, the goalkeeper is said to take the blame for every lost match, the referees were subjects of public hate, managers were disposable and the fanatics are people unable to find fulfillment in their jobs and everyday lives. Moreover, it is said that some have argued that football has been used as a political tool to distract from politics to keep the people “unable to grow”. The portrayed reality in Galeanos writing is something we would rather not see when we think about football, because in our minds football involves endless fame and money. This must be the “shadowy” part of the soccer in the sun, the price you have to pay in exchange for the money and fame.

Question: Why do you think the reality of each agent in football is being portrayed negatively, even if the author himself is a fan of football?

Both the short documentary and the reading we had for this week asked the question of why do people enjoy watching and participating in fights, and something I found intriguing was the idea of catharsis: “In a city of more than twenty-two million inhabitants, marked by insecurity and violence, lucha libre may serve as a ritual and a collective catharsis, able to channel the aggressions accumulated in a complicated, unfair and fragile life, making them visible and defusing them through the application of rules” (p. 73). I find this view challenging for many reasons. First, I’m not sure if I agree with this Freudian view of people compiling aggression as some kind of negative energy that they just need to let out in one way or another. I practice thaiboxing myself and I simply cannot relate to the idea of fighting being a way for me to take out my aggression onto my opponent/partner. I feel like if I was to get angry or frustrated I would simply lose my focus and get smashed lol. Second, I think people all over the world, from all socioeconomic statuses, enjoy watching fights and fighting, regardless of how much there is violence and insecurity on the streets. Therefore, by stating that watching these fights is a way to “channel the aggressions accumulated in a complicated, unfair and fragile life”, seems to suggest that the lower classes are in fact aggressive, resentful and prone to violence, and require a safe way to let it out or else it bursts out on the streets. Lastly, I see these events more so as entertainment than real fighting, which makes it hard to understand how this could provide a sense of relief from aggression. In fact, I was quite surprised that the fighters/wrestlers in both of the documents perceived it as a sport and real fighting because my impression has always been the contrary; I’ve thought they have practiced their moves in beforehand and the whole event is just for the entertainment of the crowd.

Question: Why do you think people enjoy fighting and watching other people fight?

In the excerpt of the novel Sarita Colonia Comes Flying a poor family has been plagued by an illness that causes people to see ghosts and spirits. The illness is caused by a snake that either is sent by an evil sorcerer or merely by the snakes own will, and can only be cured if the snakes female eggs are burned. However, one cannot know which egg is female and which one male, and thus, the father of the family is looking for Sarita Colonia to help him to find a cure. The story seems to have some traditional links to catholicism as well as a many magical features. For example, the “malicious” animal is a snake, which sounds familiar from christianity, but the snake is invisible until it bites you. Moreover, the snake kills its victims with no visible damage whatsoever. I have read one book that was magical realism in my life (El agua como el chocolate) and I was confused all the way through. I am very bad at interpreting what these kinds of things “mean”, if they mean anything at all, and happen because they just happen? Let me know what you think 🙂

I found it intriguing that Sarita Colonia, who wasn’t anyone significant in her time, became a well known saint in Peru long after she had passed away. I also found it interesting that the snake killed the policeman who came searching for “a treasure”, which he thought the snake was a sign of, but the snake didn’t kill the family whom it had lived with for the past ten years. I thought of this as some kind of lesson about greediness, which is commonly perceived as a sin in christianity, but with a twist.

Question: What is the process by which some individuals, like Sarita Colonia, become saints?

In my final project for this course I thought about looking into the Argentine cumbia villera, which is a style of music played in the poor Argentine neighbourhoods considered as “villas” (Argentine equivalent for Brazilian “favela”). This wasn’t necessarily something I was particularly interested in at first, however after doing some research I thought that maybe by studying this genre of music, it could be possible to gain a better understanding of the way of life of the lower classes in these neighbourhoods. I have lived next to one of these neighbourhoods myself, and had friends who have enjoyed this type of music, and so I have had my share of it without understanding much of the context.

In his research Mara Favoretto (2016) explains that the genre of cumbia originated in Colombia and was linked to the Afro-Caribbean cultures (p. 79). It reached Argentina in the 1940-1950, and other Latin American countries through immigration, and has been associated in many places with the “urban racialized poor” (p.79). In her research, Luz M. Lardone (2007) investigates the cultural implications of cumbia villera. She states that instead of operating as a tool to modify the poverty in which people find themselves in, cumbia villera is like a medicine for the people to understand and forget the pain and suffering of the everyday life (p. 89). Lardone states that the initial purpose of cumbia villera, as that of tango, was to give voice to those who didn’t have one (p.90). The lyrics of many of these songs are highly violent and misogynistic, they talk about drugs, women, sex, and the police. Lardone describes how the different social classes in Argentina slowly began adopting different musical preferences, the lower classes increasingly consuming cumbia, while the middle classes were more into rock music (p. 91). She states that by the 90’s, cumbia villera started reflecting the lives and values of the people in the marginalized areas of the society (p.91). Lardone argues in her paper that cumbia villera is a way of self-expression for the marginalized and poor in Argentina, whose lives are greatly affected by the underdevelopment and stigmatization of living in those neighbourhoods (p. 93).

Here you can get an idea of what cumbia villera is really about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eb4RtRV1x6k

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I am going to apologize in before hand for this blog post turning into a rant.

Although I found the readings by Allison Spedding on the Bolivian coca farming really interesting, the only thought that really came to me was how I despise the United States. I cannot understand that because they had failed in their attempt of creating a society in which people don’t fall into drug addiction, they go and destroy the means of living of the people elsewhere. Even if I know little about the mechanisms of how society might predispose its people to drug addiction, I can imagine that this issue could have been solved within the States without going to the Bolivian Andes. I mean, was it really the case that the Bolivian Indigenous people were at the heart of the US drug problem?? To me it just seems like a distraction from the fact that the politics within the United States was failing at solving the drug problem at their end and protecting people from ending up using drugs, so they outsourced their problem and put the blame on the Bolivian Indigenous coca farmers. It makes no sense. I hate it. I am also left wondering about the role of the Bolivian state in this situation. Why did they allow the US to carry out such measures in the Andes?

Anyway, moving forward from the rant, I found the Muehlmann’s article really engaging. I personally didn’t find it surprising that many corridos tell stories about narcos and violence, since I was already familiar with them in the context of the Mexican revolution. I was however curious about the connection between violence and these songs. I have taken a couple of classes where we have discussed if media/playing violent video games causes people to act violently, and it has always been concluded that there is no causality (even if there might be a positive correlation) between the two variables. Therefore, I thought these songs wouldn’t probably cause any more violence than a violent video game would. However, the author described a few instances where violence occurred when a corrido was playing, which indicates that they are directly connected to sensitive issues that provoke violence. The violence described in the article seemed quite blatant, and the author mentions few instances in which she was shocked by it. It is also mentioned, how everybody else dealt with violence in a completely normal and chilled manner. This left me wondering, if the people had merely “becoming desentisized” to violence, or if there is a missing piece of the puzzle that the Canadian author couldn’t figure out for her own positionality? For example, in the instance where there was a shooting in the concert and the singer shot into back into the crowd (didn’t this cause panic in the crowd??) and later how he was remembered as some type of a hero, makes me think that the violence was somehow performative. What do you think?

My expectations of this week were quite different from what it turned out to be. Food is a crucial part of probably any and every culture in the world and thus it has many functions and meanings. However, the ones presented by this weeks readings were somewhat unexpected to me.

I found the Zapatista corn study somehow really heartwarming. Although I knew corn is central to the Mexican food culture, I didn’t know it’s great significance to the indigenous populations and the many meanings it carries for them. During the seed bank project, which was initiated as a response to avoid the GM contamination of the corn seeds, the researchers were clearly incognizant about the complex meanings of the seemingly simple crop to the Zapatista communities, which also led to the project failing initially. To me it seemed like one of these traditional “development” attempts, whereby people from the Global North come and dictate from above how things are done, while ignoring the expertise and needs of the community they are actually trying to help. The Zapatista corn was only successful after it truly reflected the values of the Zapatista community. It was really interesting how very “insignificant” discursive elements made such a big difference. For example, calling the seed bank a “bank”, actually linked the entire project to capitalism, which made the indigenous people uncomfortable, whereas when the seeds were referred to as “friends”, they were a lot more motivated to engage with the project. However, I am left wondering who is this study really celebrating. Is it the success of the communities for being able to conserve their traditions, or the great achievements of the US researchers? Does it matter?

Question: Who do you think got the most credit of this project? Is it the Zapatista communities or the researchers?