Research
As an academic and a counsellor, I have traversed the fields of ethnomusicology, sociology, and Gestalt therapy. I am currently a Research Associate at the Centre of Latin American Studies (CLAS), University of Cambridge. My research focuses primarily on what the ethnographic study of music tells us about social inequalities.
- Through empirical work with British new music composers, I have analysed hierarchies of artistic production.
- Working with Mexican danzón music and dance practitioners, I have explored manifestations of racism, ageism and hierarchies of knowledge production.
- With rappers living in marginalised neighbourhoods of several Mexican cities, I have interrogated experiences of negotiating, promoting and protesting bellicose violences (funded by a Leverhulme Research Fellowship).
- Gestalt therapy has provided me with theoretical and practice-based insights into phenomenological methods and field theories which I am now applying to sociological enquiry.
— PROJECTS
Current Projects
HIP HOP, STIGMA AND VIOLENCE
A monograph examining how Mexican rappers negotiate stigmatization in a context of bellicose violence and intense insecurity.
ETHNOGRAPHY AND GESTALT
A new project exploring how ethnographers and gestalt psychotherapists engage with phenomenological methodologies, and what these approaches can offer one another.
— Background
Before becoming a researcher, I worked in the music industry and as a composer for film and theatre. In 2010, I completed a PhD in Sociology at the University of Cambridge, and went on to teach at The University of Manchester and then at the University of Southampton (2012-26), where I was Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology. I have held visiting fellowships at CIESAS Unidad Pacífico Sur in Mexico and at Columbia University, New York.
— Writing
publications
Danzón Days: Age, Race, and Romance in Mexico. University of Illinois Press, 2023.
- Winner, British Forum for Ethnomusicology Book Prize (2024)
- Winner, Society for Ethnomusicology Kealiinohomoku Award (2024)
- Honourable mention, Royal Musical Association/Cambridge University Press Outstanding Monograph Prize (2024)
— Articles
- “Making Subjects Grievable: Narco Rap, Moral Ambivalence and Ethical Sense Making.” Ethnomusicology Forum, vol. 30, no. 2, 2021, pp. 205-25.
- “On Sensationalism, Violence and Academic Knowledge.” Transposition. Musique et Sciences Sociales, 2020.
- “Point of View, Narrative Voice and Ethnographic Representation: Writing Everyday Violence in 2010s Mexico.” Irish Journal of Anthropology, vol. 22, no. 1, 2019, pp. 99-103.
- “Contesting Resistance, Protesting Violence: Women, War and Hip Hop in Mexico.” Music and Arts in Action, vol. 7, no. 1, 2019, pp. 46-63.
- “Negotiating Violence and Creative Agency in Commissioned Mexican Narco Rap.” Bulletin of Latin American Research, vol. 38, no. 3, 2019, pp. 347-62.
- “Aficionados, Academics, and Danzón Expertise: Exploring Hierarchies in Popular Music Knowledge Production.” Ethnomusicology, vol. 58, no. 2, 2014, pp. 222-53. This article received the Honourable Mention for the Society for Ethnomusicology Bruno Nettl Prize (2015)
- “Composing Individuals: Ethnographic Reflections on Success and Prestige in the British New Music Network.” twentieth-century music, vol. 10, no. 1, 2013, pp. 115-36.
- “New Generations, Older Bodies: Danzón, Age and ‘Cultural Rescue’ in the Port of Veracruz, Mexico.” Popular Music, vol. 31, no. 2, 2012, pp. 217-30.
- “The ‘Routes’ and ‘Roots’ of Danzón: A Critique of the History of a Genre.” Popular Music, vol. 30, no. 2, 2011, pp. 263–78.
— chapters & edited vols.
- “The Expediency of Blackness: Racial Logics and Danzón in the Port of Veracruz, Mexico.” Afro-Latin@s in Movement: Critical Approaches to Blackness and Transnationalism in the Americas, edited by Petra Rivera-Rideau et al., Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, pp. 35-59.
- Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World, Vol. 9. Genres: Caribbean and Latin America. Bloomsbury Academic, 2014. Co-edited with David Horn, Heidi Feldman, Mona-Lynn Courteau and Pamela Narbona Jerez.
- “Contradanza Cubana.” The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World, Volume 9. Genres: Caribbean and Latin America, edited by David Horn et al., Bloomsbury, 2014, pp. 218-23.
- “La Configuración Racial del Danzón: Los Imaginarios Raciales del Puerto de Veracruz.” Mestizaje, Diferencia y Nación: Lo “Negro” en América Central y el Caribe, edited by Elisabeth Cunin, INAH, UNAM, CEMCA, IRD, 2010, pp. 267-98.
— Contact
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