Musical Entrepreneurs and the Cultural Politics of Inequality in Northeastern Brazil

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Room 206 Ingraham Hall - 1155 Observatory Drive, Madison, WI 53706

Presented by Dr. Falina Enriquez, associate professor, Department of Anthropology, UW-Madison

About the presentation: This presentation will summarize the recently published book, “The Costs of the Gig Economy: Musical Entrepreneurs and the Cultural Politics of Inequality in Northeastern Brazil” (2022, University of Illinois Press). The book draws on years of ethnographic study to compare the lives of music professionals who work in various traditional and contemporary genres. These artists and cultural workers have increasingly had to become more entrepreneurial due to specific cultural policies, market pressures, and, more generally, the normalization of temporary, unstable gig work. The book reveals that ostensibly neutral market solutions–and the ideologies that uphold these–reinforce and generate overlapping racial and class-based inequalities. While these processes and their effects are relevant in Recife, they are nonetheless linked to socioeconomic and cultural conditions that are shaping the lives of many people around the world.