Alex Chávez Talk--Verses and Flows: Migrant Lives and the Sounds of Crossing

In his book Sounds of Crossing: Music, Migration, and the Aural Poetics of Huapango

Arribeño (Duke 2017), Dr. Alex E. Chávez explores the contemporary politics of Mexican

migrant cultural expression manifest in the sounds and aural poetics of huapango arribeño, a

musical genre originating from north-central Mexico. In this presentation, he draws on this

work to address how Mexican migrants voice desires of recognition and connection through

performance, and the politics such desires attain amidst the transnational context of migrant

deportability. As a researcher, artist, and participant, Chávez has consistently crossed the

boundary between scholar and performer in the realms of academic research and publicly

engaged work as a musician and producer. He draws on these experiences to address the

politics of his intellectual and creative work and how he engages both to theorize around the

political efficacy of sound-based practices, the “voice,” and the disciplinary futures of

borderlands anthropology.