PUNK! Las Américas Edition

Description

What does a hemispheric Americas look like when done through the lens of punk music, visuals and literature? That is the core premise of this book, presented through a collage of analytical, aesthetic and experiential takes on punk across the continent.

This book challenges the dominant vision of punk – particularly its white masculine protagonists and deep Anglocentrism – by analysing punk as a critical lens into the disputed territories of 'America', a term that hides the heterogeneous struggles, global histories, hopes and despairs of late twentieth and early twenty-first century experience. Compiling academic essays and punk paraphernalia (interviews, zines, poetry and visual segments) into a single volume, the book seeks to explore punk life through its multiple registers, through vivid musical dialogues, excessive visual displays and underground literary expression.

The kaleidoscopic accounts include everything from sustained academic inquiry and photo portraits to anarchist manifestos and interview excerpts with notable punk figures. The result is a radically heterogenous mixture that seeks to reposition punk and las Américas as intrinsically bound up in each other’s history: for better and for worse. Out of critical pasts, within an urgent present and toward many different possible futures.

This volume critically refashions punk to suggest it emerges from within the long-term historical experience of las Américas in all their plurality and is useful as a mode of critique towards the hegemonic dimensions of America in its imperial singularity. The book is rooted in a theory of 'radical heterogeneity' and thus represents a collage-like juxtaposition of punk perspectives from across the entire hemisphere and via divergent contributions: academic, experiential and aesthetic.

Readership for this collection will include both academic and general readers.

Primary readership will be academic. It will appeal to researchers, scholars, educators and students in the following fields: American studies, Latin American studies, media and communication, cultural studies, sociology, history, music, ethnomusicology, anthropology, art, literature.

General readership will be among those interested in the following areas - anarchism, music, subculture, literature, independent publishing, photography.

Acknowledgments

Introduction: ¿Otro Punk es Posible? Heterogeneous Histories, Contested Territories

   Olga Rodriguez-Ulloa, Rodrigo Quijano, and Shane Greene

CONTESTED TERRITORY 1: COLONIALITY AND CULTURAL RESILIENCE

1. The punk indigenous: Mapunkys

      Agustina Paz Frontera

2. The Monument: The anchorage scene as colonial history

      Thomas Michael Swensen 

CONTESTED TERRITORY 2:  SIGHTS, SOUNDS, AND IM/POSSIBLE DIALOGUES

3. Sonic agitation

      Jon Horne Carter

4. Brown gaze, feminine gaze / queer punk, latin punk

      Amina Cruz

5. Lima 77

      Rodrigo Quijano

6. Stepping on the flowers with Brazil’s early punks

      Alexander S. Dent

7. “I really thought it was about fucking revolution” (interview)

      Martín Crudo and Shane Greene

8. Porno para Ricardo, unplugged (comment and video transcript)

      Shane Greene and Olga Rodríguez-Ulloa

CONTESTED TERRITORY 3: IDENTITY, VOICE, AND STRUGGLE

9. Sadistic cholas: Sex and violence in punk literature

      Olga Rodríguez-Ulloa

10. Pa’ los jodíxs: The anti-movement of borícua punk

      Judith Rodríguez

11. Hysterics, rebels, and punks: Collectivity and feminism in Mexico City

      Merarit Viera Alcazar

12. “This is not what Afro-Punk is about” (interview)

      James Spooner and Shane Greene

13. Notes on femzines from Colombia (comment on zines, punk, and feminism)

      Minerva Campion and Rapiña

14. “I don’t care what you think and you can’t hurt me” (interview)

      Alice Bag and Olga Rodríguez-Ulloa

CONTESTED TERRITORY 4: STATES, BORDERS, AND VIOLENCE

15. Punk and the drug war in Mexico (record review and interviews)

      Stuart Schrader, Yecatl Peña, Fani Suarez, Violeta Hinojosa, and Dave Rata

16. Burning Down the City (novel excerpt)

      Julio Durán

17. I disrespect authority: Punk disobedience and activism in post-dictatorship Argentina (comment on documentary images)

      Pat Pietrafesa

18. "Los frikis”: Voices from the first wave of Cuban punk (comment and testimonial)

      Carmen Torre Pérez

CONTESTED TERRITORY 5: INDIVIDUALISMS OF HOPE AND DESPAIR

19. Not your punk

      Shane Greene

PARAPHERNALIA 

20. “The first lesson was self-definition” (interview)

      Ian MacKaye and Shane Greene

21. Third world punk manifesto (poetry, manifesto, and film review)

      Giovanni Oquendo

22. Scene report on straightedge hardcore punk and activism at the Festival Verdurada in São Paulo (scene 

      report)     

      Jess Reia

IN LIEU OF A CONCLUSION – A PUNK MANIFESTO

23. 40 years of punk in the world, Mexico 2017

      Magos Rebelde

Author Biographies

Index

Sujets

• Latin American
• Performing Arts
• MUSIC
• América del Sur
• Multiple signal classification
• Latin American studies
• American studies
• Performance art
• Cultural studies
• South America
• Latin America
• Central America
• Anthropology
• SS Central America
• Punk
• Art
• Caribbean

Informations

• Publié par: Intellect Books
• Date de parution: 23 septembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781789384178
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 7 Mo

Extrait

GLOBAL PUNK
Series editors: Russ Bestley, Mike Dines, Alastair Gordon, & Paula Guerra
Produced in collaboration with the Punk Scholars Network, the Global Punk series focuses on the development of contemporary global punk, reflecting upon its origins, aesthetics, identity, legacy, membership, and circulation. Critical approaches draw upon the interdisciplinary areas of (amongst others) cultural studies, art and design, sociology, musicology, and social sciences in order to develop a broad and inclusive picture of punk and punk-inspired subcultural developments around the globe. The series adopts an essentially analytical perspective, raising questions over the dissemination of punk scenes and subcultures and their form, structure and contemporary cultural significance in the daily lives of an increasing number of people around the world. To propose a manuscript, or for more information about the series, please contact the series co-editors Russ Bestley, [e-mail], and Mike Dines, [e-mail] .
The Punk Reader: Research Transmissions from the Local and the Global
Edited by Russ Bestley, Mike Dines, Alastair Gordon, & Paula Guerra
Trans-Global Punk Scenes: The Punk Reader Vol. 2
Edited by Russ Bestley, Mike Dines, Alastair Gordon, & Paula Guerra
Punk Identities, Punk Utopias: Global Punk and Media
Edited by Russ Bestley, Mike Dines, Matt Grimes, & Paula Guerra
PUNK! Las Américas Edition
Edited by Olga Rodríguez-Ulloa, Rodrigo Quijano, & Shane Greene

First published in the UK in 2021 by Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
First published in the USA in 2021 by Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Copyright © 2021 Intellect Ltd
Produced in collaboration with the Punk Scholars Network
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Copy editor: Newgen
Cover designer: Russ Bestley
Cover image courtesy of Pedro “Tóxico” Grijalva of the Peruvian band,
Sociedad de Mierda
Indexing: Amron Gravett
Production managers: Faith Newcombe and Sophia Munyengeterwa
Typesetting: Russ Bestley
Part of the Global Punk series
Print ISBN 978-1-78938-415-4
ePDF ISBN 978-1-78938-416-1
ePUB ISBN 978-1-78938-417-8
Printed and bound by Hobbs
To find out about all our publications, please visit
www.intellectbooks.com
There, you can subscribe to our e-newsletter, browse or download our current catalogue and buy any titles that are in print.
This is a peer-reviewed publication.

CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION: ¿OTRO PUNK ES POSIBLE? HETEROGENOUS HEMISPHERE, CONTESTED TERRITORIES
OLGA RODRÍGUEZ-ULLOA, RODRIGO QUIJANO, AND SHANE GREENE
CONTESTED TERRITORY 1: COLONIALITY AND CULTURAL RESILIENCE
ESSAYS
1 . THE PUNK INDIGENOUS: MAPUNKYS
AGUSTINA PAZ FRONTERA
2 . THE MONUMENT: THE ANCHORAGE SCENE AS COLONIAL HISTORY
THOMAS MICHAEL SWENSEN
CONTESTED TERRITORY 2: SIGHTS, SOUNDS, AND IM/POSSIBLE DIALOGUES
ESSAYS
3 . SONIC AGITATION
JON HORNE CARTER
4 . BROWN GAZE, FEMININE GAZE/QUEER PUNK, LATIN PUNK
AMINA CRUZ
5 . LIMA ’77
RODRIGO QUIJANO
6 . STEPPING ON THE FLOWERS WITH BRAZIL’S EARLY PUNKS
ALEXANDER S. DENT
PARAPHERNALIA
7 . “I REALLY THOUGHT IT WAS ABOUT FUCKING REVOLUTION”
MARTÍN CRUDO AND SHANE GREENE
8 . PORNO PARA RICARDO, UNPLUGGED
SHANE GREENE AND OLGA RODRÍGUEZ-ULLOA
CONTESTED TERRITORY 3: IDENTITY, VOICE, AND STRUGGLE
ESSAYS
9 . SADISTIC CHOLAS: SEX AND VIOLENCE IN PUNK LITERATURE
OLGA RODRÍGUEZ-ULLOA
10 . PA’ LOS JODÍXS: THE ANTI-MOVEMENT OF BORÍCUA PUNK
JUDITH RODRÍGUEZ
11 . HYSTERICS, REBELS, AND PUNKS: COLLECTIVITY AND FEMINISM IN MEXICO CITY
MERARIT VIERA ALCAZAR
PARAPHERNALIA
12 . “THIS IS NOT WHAT AFRO-PUNK IS ABOUT”
JAMES SPOONER AND SHANE GREENE
13 . NOTES ON FEMZINES FROM COLOMBIA
MINERVA CAMPION AND RAPIÑA
14 . “I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU THINK AND YOU CAN’T HURT ME”
ALICE BAG AND OLGA RODRÍGUEZ-ULLOA
CONTESTED TERRITORY 4: STATES, BORDERS, AND VIOLENCE
PARAPHERNALIA
15 . PUNK AND THE DRUG WAR IN MEXICO
STUART SCHRADER, YECATL PEÑA, FANI SUAREZ, VIOLETA HINOJOSA, AND DAVE RATA
16 . BURNING DOWN THE CITY (EXCERPT)
JULIO DURÁN
17 . I DISRESPECT AUTHORITY: PUNK DISOBEDIENCE AND ACTIVISM IN POST-DICTATORSHIP ARGENTINA
PAT PIETRAFESA
18 . “LOS FRIKIS”: VOICES FROM THE FIRST WAVE OF CUBAN PUNK
CARMEN TORRE PÉREZ
CONTESTED TERRITORY 5: INDIVIDUALISMS OF HOPE AND DESPAIR
ESSAY
19 . NOT YOUR PUNK
SHANE GREENE
PARAPHERNALIA
20 . “THE FIRST LESSON WAS SELF-DEFINITION”
IAN MACKAYE AND SHANE GREENE
21 . THIRD WORLD PUNK MANIFESTO (SELECTIONS)
GIOVANNI OQUENDO
22 . SCENE REPORT ON STRAIGHTEDGE HARDCORE PUNK AND ACTIVISM AT THE FESTIVAL VERDURADA IN SÃO PAULO
JESS REIA
IN LIEU OF A CONCLUSION—A PUNK MANIFESTO
23 . 40 YEARS OF PUNK IN THE WORLD, MEXICO 2017
MAGOS REBELDE
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES
INDEX
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Multiple actors and institutions had a hand in bringing this chaotic compilation to press. Most importantly, we’d like to thank all the various contributors to the book as well as multiple other collaborators they work with, all of whom have generously participated in this project directly or indirectly. Their imagery, words, thoughts—and, most fundamentally, their creativity—make this unique compilation what it is. The production of the book was an intimate coming to know each other even when we didn’t all converge in a single space-time to do so. In an earlier iteration, and to discuss drafts among the essayists, we organized a conference titled “Punk y culturas juveniles en las américas.” This event took place in August 2018 on the campus of La Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). For that event, we would like to thank the generous support from UNAM’s Seminario de Investigación en Juventud (SIJ) and Indiana University’s (IU’s) Mexico Gateway at UNAM (as well as the other Indiana University units that provided supplemental funding). In this regard, a special thank you to Christiana Ochoa (director of the IU Mexico Gateway) and mil gracias to both José Antonio Pérez Islas (coordinador of the SIJ) and Merarit Viera Alcazar (one of the contributors to this volume) for their efforts to organize that event. It proved vital in multiple ways. We would also like to send a special thank you to Guillermo López Prieto and Mark Fitzsimmons of IU’s Spanish Department for help with certain translations. We also want to acknowledge the generous financial support from IU’s Office for the Vice Provost for Research and Lafayette College’s Academic Research Committee for assuring this volume makes it to paperback. Finally, we owe a huge debt to Jelena Stanovnik, our editor at Intellect Press, and Russ Bestley and Mike Dines, editors of the Global Punk series, for showing such enthusiasm about the project and granting us the space necessary to pursue such an unusual combination of texts and ideas in one space (not just anybody would!).
INTRODUCTION: ¿OTRO PUNK ES POSIBLE? HETEROGENOUS HEMISPHERE, CONTESTED TERRITORIES
INTRODUCTION: ¿OTRO PUNK ES POSIBLE? HETEROGENOUS HEMISPHERE, CONTESTED TERRITORIES
OLGA RODRÍGUEZ-ULLOA, RODRIGO QUIJANO, AND SHANE GREENE
¡Púdrete pituco, reconchatumadre!
—Sociedad de Mierda
The notion of ch’ixi […] corresponds to the Aymara idea of something that is and is not. […] A grey that is ch’ixi is white and is not white at the same time; it’s white and it’s also black, its opposite.
—Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui
The whole point of punk is not doing what you’re told to do.
—Virginie Despentes
It wasn’t only about the music and music wasn’t only about music.
—Mark Fisher
Radically Heterogenous Punk
We begin this book citing four disparate sources above—a mid-1980s Peruvian punk band, a Bolivian indigenous activist, a French fiction writer, and a British intellectual dead from suicide—after two years of planning, encounters, drafts, and spicy chat sessions. We want to signal from the outset that our strength lies in the purposely heterogenous set of texts, images, and ideas contained here and the contrarily positioned actors involved in their production.
To start, we argue punk is a category with simultaneously analytical, experiential, and relational properties, as will become clear in the divergent contributions this book contains. It’s analytical because punk can be used as a conceptual starting point to tackle much broader issues (society, history, power, race, gender, etc.). It’s experiential because as a subcultural phenomenon—marked as such since the 1970s even when the roots of the word prove to be older than “the Americas” (more on that below)—punk informs individual and collective self-definitions all over the world. It’s relational because punk, through analysis and experience, is never simply one definable thing. Punk is many things caught up in relation to many other things: local context, historical moment, other forms of artistic expression, haircuts and tattoos, sets of political values, and so on.
Were we to explore a punk Américas through only one or two modalities—let’s say a book of scholarly essays with a few visuals—it would be a willful misrepresentation addressed to only one kind of reader. It would also be pretty boring. Instead, we sought from the outset to engage multiple forms of punk representation: written and visual essays; short commentary on primary texts, transcriptions, testimonios , and crónicas ; visual documentation; sit-down interviews; record and film reviews; snippets of fanzines and flyers; and excerpts of poetry and novels. In lieu of a contrived conclusion, we end with a manifesto, giving the final word to a punk we encountered spontaneously in Mexico City during the b