Abstract

PETIT, Facundo. Music, noise… or silence?. Cuad. antropol. soc. [online]. 2022, n.56, pp.85-104.  Epub Nov 10, 2022. ISSN 1850-275X.  http://dx.doi.org/10.34096/cas.i56.11427.

This article analyzes the 2018 conflict between artists and the Buenos Aires City government, when a reform in the Contraventional Code defined street music as an annoying noise. My analysis focuses on contradictions recorded during ethnographic work, where the municipal government shows an ambiguous valuation of street music. My hypothesis is that the use of noise nuisance by government systems functions as a category broad enough to proscribe and sanction practices that escape state control. The text is organized around how noise has been defined in Buenos Aires, an approach to street music in the city and, finally, the contradictions that allow us to conclude that through noise the government seeks to control and reduce a social, artistic, historical and public practice to its acoustic aspect.

Keywords : Street music; Autonomous City of Buenos Aires; Noise; State control; Silencing.

        · abstract in Spanish | Portuguese     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )