Creating new spaces and new identities: Bolivian urban folk music and diasporic communities

The development of urban folk music in Bolivia , since the 1960s can be seen as processes which have lead to an alternative cultural development. The paper aims to focus the pathways of this music, its musicians and its audiences creating a new music culture at the margins in the northern part of the world. I present some theoretical thoughts and empirical findings about the meaning of Bolivian urban folk music and the diasporic community where multiple identities and contemporary social and political issues can be articulated.  

Bolivian urban folk music culture is analysed as an intermediator between “folk and popular” /”rural and urban” and “global and local”/ music which is staged in different places and spaces. In the paper I also discuss how the participants of the diasporic communities are continually discovering a dominated culture and creating different forms of culture.