Musicalizing death: The cosmopolitics of Kukama music videos in Peruvian Amazonia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21142/DES-1802-2026-e0033Palavras-chave:
Aesthetics, cosmopolitics, indigenous media, Kukama, musicResumo
This article analyzes the politics and aesthetics of Indigenous media in Peruvian Amazonia. It explores the way Kukama activists from the city of Nauta use media technologies to create novel forms of musicalizations of «dangerous others.» Specifically, I examine Radio Ucamara’s music-video-making strategies to confront oil extraction. Building on debates around cosmopolitical approaches in anthropology, my main goal is to study the way Kukama media-makers create pop sounds to invoke other-than-human agents in the realm of environmental politics. I contribute to these debates by drawing on Jonathan Hill’s concept of «musicalization.» I approach Kukama musicalizations by combining ethnographic fieldwork with the formal analysis of Indigenous pop songs. The main result of this research is that Radio Ucamara songs/videoclips are produced to musically incorporate cosmological subjectivities into political spaces. I conclude by arguing that Radio Ucamara’s media aesthetics carry a generative power whereby Kukama activists can potentially transform political realities.
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