Nationalism and Latin American Music: Selected Case Studies and Theoretical Considerations

In discussing the criollo-based independence movements in the Americas during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Benedict Anderson notes that these cases are not easily explained by the usual means of national linguistic and cultural distinction. ¹ He writes: "All, including the U.S.A., were creole states formed and led by people who shared a common language and common descent with those against whom they fought" (1991, 47). "Yet," he asserts, "they were national independence movements" (ibid., 49).

In this essay I argue that they were not initially national independence movements in the contemporary sense of (1) general inclusion of the state's population within the conception of nation or (2) popular sovereignty as the basis of state sovereignty and legitimacy vis-à-vis other states. In the early nineteenth century these ideas about nations and nationalism were not yet common, and the Latin American republics were formed according to different premises. In both Europe and Latin America, nineteenth-century notions of the nation were grounded in the discourse of Liberalism and criteria of sufficient territorial and population size, economic viability, and in Latin America at least some agreement regarding political principles. Eric Hobsbawm argues that a variety of nineteenth-century European nationalist movements were "evidently incompatible with definitions of nation as based on ethnicity, language, or common history, but, as we have seen, these were not decisive criteria of liberal nation-making" (1990, 33). Hobsbawm's observations hold true for the early Latin American republics as well.

A century later, during the early to middle decades of the twentieth century, more inclusive, culturally based conceptions of the nation became prominent in Latin America, sometimes in the context of populist movements. It was not until this point that efforts to link formerly disenfranchised populations to the state got underway. Consequently, the modular processes of post-colonial musical nationalism, especially the 'modernist reform' or folklorization of indigenous and African-American traditions also became common.

It seems significant that, in spite of the differing local conditions that led to populist projects in specific Latin American countries, they occur close together in time and produce very similar musical results—suggesting common underlying models, motivations, and causes. Let me offer the following points for further discussion. First, populist nationalist movements in Latin America were state-initiated programs that challenged the traditional ruling oligarchies by so-called 'modernizing' capitalist interests; ² populism occurred within programs to increase domestic and trans-state capitalist activity beyond the established ruling groups. Second, this situation correlated with the increasingly inclusive notions of the nation marked by the expansion of the franchise, concessions such as labor and land reforms, and increased forging of cultural links with subaltern groups within the state's territory.

What we see in Latin America from the 1820s to the 1970s, and in nationalist discourse more generally, is an ever-increasing inclusivity and acceptance of different social groups within the nation conceived as a sociocultural unit with a corresponding increased emphasis on cultural nationalism and reformist transformations of subaltern cultural and musical practices. Contemporary 'multiculturalism' is the most recent example of this trajectory. Cultural and musical nationalism did not receive the same level of state emphasis in the early period because creating a unified population within the state's territory was not a primary criterion of the nation. This situation was to change in the first half of the twentieth century, the period when cosmopolitan nationalist discourse and practices were to develop a symbiotic relationship with individual state projects of capitalist expansion. Here, I offer some general comparisons of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Latin American nationalist movements to trace the development of increasing inclusivity and participation, resulting in the contemporary idea of nation. The comparisons also illustrate two basic types of musical nationalism that exist currently in many countries: (1) state-generated and elite-associated forms and (2) 'reformist-popular' or 'folkloric' styles—both historically layered in...