Routines, Rhythms and the Mobilisation of Musical Practices

Despite the increasing interest in mobilities and cultural practices, the specific mobilities of musical practices have been sparsely addressed in the scholarly literature. This paper advances the notion of mobilisation of musical practices and its relationship with routines, rhythms and bodily gestures as a way to analyse the transportation of ways of making and experiencing music across networks of relationships. The specific case of son jarocho is addressed to explore and discuss this notion. Son jarocho is a musical practice originated in southeast Mexico and is believed to be product of the encounter of African, Nahua and Spanish-Andaluz traditions. It is nowadays reproduced, appropriated and recreated in various locations of Mexico and the United States, partly due to the migratory flows between these two countries. Practitioners have used son jarocho to elaborate discourses of authenticity and preservation of a regional musical heritage; however, it is currently also sustained, informed and reshaped by transnational linkages. I suggest that son jarocho is no longer confined to a bounded and coherent community or ethnic group (namely Mexicans, Jarochos, Mexican-Americans or Chicanos), but constitutes a complex form of socially established activity in which repertoires of bodily gestures, rhythms and routines are reproduced, re-appropriated and recreated across transnational social fields.