'Our Culture's Not for Sale!': Music and theAsamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxacain Mexico

The Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca (APPO), a social movement that emerged in June 2006, was a response to severe government repression of a teachers' strike in Oaxaca, Mexico. This article focuses on the movement participants' involvement with music, and the innovative ways in which songs associated with APPO were shared and circulated during the conflict. APPO's engagement with musical activities created spaces in which the political significance of regional culture was reinterpreted and re-signified. APPO, despite failing in its primary political objectives, thus generated new ways of relating to the performance, representation, politics and consumption of musical traditions.

Automated summary

The APPO movement emerged in response to government repression of a teachers' strike in Oaxaca, Mexico, in 2006. This article focuses on the movement's engagement with music, and how songs associated with APPO were shared and circulated during the conflict. Despite failing in its primary political objectives, APPO created new ways of relating to musical traditions through its engagement with musical activities.