Musical Hydropoetics: Fluvial Inhabitings, Son Jarocho, and Anthroposcenes

Abstract

This is a geopoetic exploration of riverine space through music. In this article, I build upon the nascent field of hydropoetics by approaching the space of rivers through musical ethnographic research. I draw upon post-colonial geopoetic approaches, blue humanities and oceanic studies, and the phenomenology of Gaston Bachelard and Ivan Illich, as well as on the praxis of son Jarocho musicians. I reflect upon three vignettes of music in two rivers of Sotavento in southeast Mexico and in one British river, exploring the ways in which son Jarocho music is used to produce and transform space. These surveys disembogue into a consideration of the possibilities granted by musical hydropoetics in the context of the Anthropocene, thinking of landscapes as feral Anthroposcenes as per Tsing et al. and Matless’s works.