The purpose of the Study Group Music and Dance in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAT CAR) is to create a geographical and language-related accessible space for the study, practice, documentation, preservation, and dissemination of music, sounds, dances and movements in and from Latin America and the Caribbean. The aim of this study group is to connect perspectives and help bring researchers together, providing a platform of exchange and visibility for the ICTMD.
The many diverse regions and peoples in Latin America and the Caribbean have commonalities in their historical, political, and migration backgrounds and identities. They share, among other aspects, a colonial past, the oppression of Indigenous knowledges and practices, as well as the preservation, maintenance, and development of unique modes of existence. These processes have informed Indigenous, African, and other experiences as well as forms of hybridization or mestizaje, which ultimately influence music, sound, movement and dances as culture and in cultures.
The Study Group welcomes epistemologies that reach beyond the notions of music, dance, sound, performance, and bodies in movement. In efforts to re-imagine the disciplinary boundaries of knowledge production, LAT CAR provides further spaces for research informed by multimodal methods including—but not limited to—audiovisual investigations, applied methods, and music and dance performance-based didactics. We also strongly encourage the participation of underrepresented sociopolitical groups, such as individuals and communities that have been historically discriminated against and marginalized due to their ethnicity, race, gender identity, sexual orientation, class, religion, (dis)abilities, age, or political beliefs; thereby giving space and voice to the diverse narratives that shape this vast region of the world.