Sonic Governance: Culturalization and Criminalization of Funk Carioca in Rio de Janeiro.

Music and sound have long served as symbols of Brazil, and contests over public sound amplify contests over space, governance, and biopolitics. In anticipation of hosting the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics, sound became an important and contested arena of politics in Rio de Janeiro. I discuss how aurality becomes a political force through the emergence of two distinct forms of sonic politics around local popular music, funk carioca: criminalization and, what I call, culturalization. While criminalization mutes and controls sound through police repression, culturalization creates a purified sound and appeals to law to claim legitimacy as "culture." Funk carioca's criminalization in favelas and culturalization in the formal city reveals how different modes of governance are spatialized within the city. The paradox of criminalization and culturalization of funk suggests coexistence of authoritarian and liberal democratic modes of governance in the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]