Norteño Corporeality: Body, Gender, Sound, and Economy in Commercialized Norteño Music Videos

Abstract

This article analyzes norteño corporeality, or how bodies physically engage with norteño music and visually display norteño identities. Through a comparison of more than 75 mainstream videos, it explains how current norteño corporeality differs from earlier corporealities, why it differs from tejano ones, and why it strongly resembles those of gangsta rap. Using an interdisciplinary approach, the article focuses on the banal and the ordinary in musical performance; in so doing it shows how gender and race interact with and are affected by neoliberalism in the US-Mexico border area.