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Article published In: The Politics of Sound: Intersections of Music, Discourse and Political Communication
Edited by Lyndon C.S. Way
[Journal of Language and Politics 18:4] 2019
► pp. 541–559

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Paramilitarism and music in Colombia

An analysis of the corridos paracos

ORCiD logo with link | Universidad Del Rosario
 | Universidad Santo Tomás (Colombia)
Published online: 28 June 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.19019.bar
Abstract
Colombia has experienced violence at the hands of both guerrillas and paramilitaries fighting to control territories, drug trafficking, and gain political influence. Though in recent years armed activities by both groups has subsided, their conflicting ideologies are visible in several contexts in today’s polarized Colombia. We tend to think about conflict in terms of bullets and people in military uniforms, but discourses of conflict are also evident in popular culture, such as music. In this paper, we analyse 19 corridos paracos, videos produced by sympathisers of Right-wing guerrilla groups, to demonstrate how this is done. Here, we find songs present a messianic portrayal of the paramilitary along with sexist ideas as the representation of manliness. Moreover, there is an almost total absence of peaceful actions in the lyrics, and an exaltation of brutality and terrorism. In a political context which cries out for reconciliation, these do little to this end.
Article outline
  • 1.Paramilitarism in Colombia
  • 2.Music videos, violence and criminal discourses
  • 3.Actors and actions
  • 4.Method
  • 5.Results
  • 6.Final thoughts
  • References
References (38)
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Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Millar, Stephen R.
2022. Let us entertain you: paramilitary songs and the politics of loyalist cultural production in Northern Ireland. Race & Class 63:4 ► pp. 9 ff. DOI logo
Hynes-Bishop, Luke
2021. Re-Narrating Militarisms in the Colombian Conflict: Medellín’s Museo Casa de la Memoria. In Militarization and the Global Rise of Paramilitary Culture, ► pp. 123 ff. DOI logo
Millar, Stephen R. & Evropi Chatzipanagiotidou
2021. From Belfast to the Somme (and back again): loyalist paramilitaries, political song, and reverberations of violence. Ethnomusicology Forum 30:2 ► pp. 246 ff. DOI logo

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