Rosa and the inaudible singer: no-place, places of memory and voice-place nexus

Abstract

Based on the experience of the Aymara singer and intercultural educator Rosa Qhispi (Tarapacá Region, northern Chile), the link between song and place is approached in three crossed aspects. The one related to the traditional role (place) of the Andean singer makes explicit her lack of a place of enunciation configured by a historical and structural silencing, perpetuated in the neoliberal interculturality, that determines its inaudibility. The geographic one refers to migration to the city, uprooting and the translocal situation that characterizes Aymara subjects in the region, in permanent transit between urban and rural spaces. Finally, in the mnemic dimension, musical practices are proposed as places of memory, as instances of recreation of collective memory that are activated in different spaces and contexts, with different degrees of territorial linkage. The album, as a delocalized place of memory, constitutes a fundamental tool, allowing Rosa to perform and project her role according to her own notions of tradition and interculturality. The animals present in the songs enhance the voice-place nexus of singing with community and nature.