Cartographies of Youth Resistance: Hip-Hop, Punk, and Urban Autonomy in Mexico

by Maurice Rafael Magaña

Overview

In his exciting new book, based on a decade of ethnographic fieldwork, Maurice Magaña considers how urban and migrant youth in Oaxaca embrace subcultures from hip-hop to punk and adopt creative organizing practices to create meaningful channels of participation in local social and political life. In the process, young people remake urban space and construct new identities in ways that directly challenge elite visions of their city and essentialist notions of what it means to be indigenous in the contemporary era. Cartographies of Youth Resistance is essential reading for students and scholars interested in youth politics and culture in Mexico, social movements, urban studies, and migration.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520344624
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	11/17/2020
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	234
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Maurice Rafael Magaña is a sociocultural anthropologist and Assistant Professor of Mexican American Studies at the University of Arizona. 

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
List of Acronyms and Organizations

Introduction • Rethinking Social Movement Temporality and Spatiality through Counterspace and Urban Youth Culture
1 • Building Youth Counterspaces, Horizontal Political Cultures, and Emergent Identities in the Oaxacan Social Movement of 2006
2 • Urban Autonomy, Indigenous Anarchisms, and Other Political Genealogies for the 2006 Generation
3 • Urban Youth Collectives as Laboratories for Constructing and Spatializing Horizontal Politics in Post-2006 Oaxaca
4 • Networking Counterspaces, Constellations of Resistance, and the Politics of Rebel Aesthetics
5 • Rebel Aesthetics: Giving Form to the 2006 Generation’s Liberationist Imagination through Street Art, Punk, and Hip-Hop

Conclusion • Shifting Cartographies of (Youth) Resistance
Notes
Works Cited 
Index

Editorial Reviews

No doubt that Cartographies of Youth Resistance: Hip Hop, Punk, and Urban Autonomy in Mexico is a book that expands our understanding of 2006 Oaxaca and especially of the contemporary social movements there that continue to be led by the youth, echoing the struggles of the 2006 Generation. The book also provides a great contribution to the area of hip hop and punk studies within Latin America, and can be placed as an excellent addition to current scholarship in anthropology of the arts and youth studies.”

Latin American Literary Review

"Magaña’s greatest contribution is his ethnographic work about punk culture in Oaxaca. . . . The punk scene is often regarded as the rebel kid of white privilege. Magaña shows us another point of view regarding the deep complexities of this group. . . . This book serves to benefit anyone studying globalization, transculturation, multiculturalism, hybrid cultures, and interculturalism in Latin America."

Mobilizations

"The book is an ethnographic treasure-trove. Rich in information, it sheds light on the complexity of local politics and social movements. More than anything else, it is the depth of Magaña’s analysis, capturing the youth’s interconnected understanding of race, politics, and subcultures, that makes this book a must-read for researchers of social movements in the Americas, and beyond."

Anthropology Book Forum

"Within the context of the enduring afterlife of the renowned 2006 Oaxaca teacher's strike, Magaña (Univ. of Arizona) presents an extraordinarily well-informed ethnographic account . . .Magaña portrays and corroborates Oaxacan youth as "agents of change" and "dreamers of liberatory and dignified futures," offering a counter-reality to the prevalent negative stereotypes of the Mexican underclass. This is an excellent book for both its methodology and content."

CHOICE

"Magaña’s book is an accessible read for both undergraduate and graduate students. Like the historical agents in his book, students and scholars of radical politics will undoubtedly build on the ideas and analyses contained in Cartographies of Youth Resistance."

New Mexico Historical Review

The book’s wealth of ethnographic data on a too-little studied corner of the world opens the door for others to join and extend the valuable dialogues that Magaña and his collaborators in Oaxaca established.

Anthropological Forum

"Cartographies of Youth Resistance would appeal to readers involved or interested in social movements, as well as young people because of its study of political protests and revolution, and the important role that urban youth had in changing the social climate in Oaxaca city."

Space and Culture

"In short, Cartographies of Youth Resistance provides a compelling take on the role of Indigenous young people in the spatial construction of social movements. The insights developed in the book are not only useful for understanding social movements in Mexico; they can also be adapted for thinking about youth activism in many contexts throughout Latin America and elsewhere."

Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology