The Panama Canal that connects the Pacific and Atlantic oceans is a world-famous site central to the global economy, but the social, cultural, and political history of the country along this waterway is little known outside of its borders. In Música Típica, author Sean Bellaviti sheds light on a key element of Panamanian culture that usually gets overshadowed by the Canal, namely the story of cumbia, a form of music that enjoys unparalleled popularity across Panama.

Through extensive archival and ethnographic research, Bellaviti reconstructs a twentieth-century social history of Panamanian música típica that illuminates the crucial role music has played in the formation of national identities in Latin America. Paying attention in particular to the relation between cumbia and the rise of populist Panamanian nationalism in the context of U.S. imperialism, Bellaviti argues that this hybrid musical form, which forges links between the urban and rural as well as the modern and traditional, has been essential to the development of a sense of nationhood among Panamanians. With their approaches to musical fusion and their carefully curated performance identities, cumbia musicians have straddled some of the most pronounced schisms in Panamanian society.

Sean Bellaviti's profile page

Sean Bellaviti is Adjunct Professor at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada. His research interests include the development of musical nationalism in Panama, genre studies, the political economy of Latin America and Caribbean popular music and dance, and folk music collections in the Americas. More recently, he has embarked on a new research project best described as a social history of Toronto's salsa scene.