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- Love and Rage
English language study of the punk scene in Mexico City
Love and Rage is a deeply ethnographic account of punk in Mexico City as it is lived and practiced, connecting the sounds of punk music to different styles of political action. Through compelling first-person accounts, ethnographer Kelley Tatro shows that punk is more than music. It is a lifestyle choice that commits scene participants to experimentation with anarchist politics. Key to that process is the concept of autogestión ("self-management"), a term with deep history in local leftist politics. In detailed vignettes, grounded in historical, social, and political frames, the book shows how punk-scene sounds and practices foster autogestión through intensely affective experiences, understood as manifestations of love and rage. Drawing on the history of anarchism in Mexico City, as well as social movement scholarship, Love and Rage details the pleasures and problems of using music as a tool for creating an autonomous politics. Includes 25 photographs from photographer Yaz "Punk" Núñez.
CONTENTS • Prologue • Introduction: Sowing • Chapter Two: Rage • Chapter Three: Dissent • Chapter Four: Love • Chapter Five: Autonomy • Notes • References
KELLEY TATRO (Chicago, IL) is a writer and editor with a PhD from Duke University. YAZ "PUNK" NÚÑEZ is a filmmaker and photographer with a degree in cinematography from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. She lives in Mexico City.
"Tatro situates Mexico City's contemporary anarcho-punk scene within the long-term dynamics of DF's metropolitan space as well as Mexico's larger national context. She clearly makes the case for how Mexico City's punk scene is Mexican and not simply a local derivative of punk's many global journeys. The book is also an extraordinary testament to Tatro's ethnographic skills."
~Shane Greene, professor of anthropology, Indiana University
"Tatro elegantly draws lines from the hardships the participants experience to their dreams and their political values as well as to the musical expressions they live for. She convincingly shows that this punk scene is not simply a subculture, but an informal social movement with transformative potential."
~Annick Prieur, professor in the Department of Sociology and Social Work, Aalborg University, Denmark
"In this compelling ethnography, Kelley Tatro tells the intimate story of how young people in Mexico City make real punk's political potentials—through anger and fury, but also friendship and care."
~Nicholas Tochka, author of Rocking in the Free World: Popular Music and the Politics of Freedom in Postwar America
""I found Love and Rage a fascinating account of punk history and lived experience in Mexico City punctuated by a message of hope, community, and ultimately, love. The author splendidly dispels stereotypes about punk-scene participants and does a good job to situate Mexico City's position in the global punk scene.""
~Kyle Fulford, Journal of Folklore Research Reviews
