CIEE Mexico Resident Director Karen Rodriguez’s recent article in Delaware Review of Latin American Studies
Audiotopia: the provincial city as an ear.
This article explores the idealized and ideal aurality of a provincial Mexican city. Like any other city, Guanajuato produces a variety of everyday sounds in her different neighborhoods; however, this article casts the city not only as producer of sound, but also as listener. Shaped like an ear thanks to an unusual topography, and posited as maternal within Mexican discourse, the provincial city listens to domestic tourists’ national angst, as well as to other outsiders’ voices and desires. While some might assert that this only compounds the city’s marginal construction – as maternal, feminine, passive – the provincial city’s unique ability to listen to others and to herself may point to a stronger subjectivity than one might expect. The city’s intense aurality speaks to the power of listening in a world of noisy otherness.
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