MUSICAL TRANSMISSION IN NAÇÃO ZAMBERACATU: A BEAT BEYOND MUSIC
Musical transmission; Ethnomusicology; Black identity; Maracatu.
This thesis investigates the processes of musical transmission within Nação Zamberacatu, the first maracatu nation in the city of Natal (RN), seeking to understand how the circulation of musical knowledge articulates the construction of identities and forms of belonging within the group. It starts from the understanding that, in Afro-diasporic contexts, musical transmission is not restricted to teaching rhythmic patterns or repertoires, but involves the circulation of bodily, memorial, ritualistic, and affective knowledge. The study is situated in the field of ethnomusicology, dialoguing with authors such as Blacking, Nettl, Small, Meintjes, and Queiroz, in conjunction with Afro-diasporic perspectives and studies on identity, ancestry, and territoriality based on Hall, Gilroy, Souza, Sodré, and Bispo dos Santos. Methodologically, it is a qualitative research characterized as a case study with an ethnographic approach, utilizing participant observation, interviews, questionnaires applied by the group itself, and field notes and memory records, considering that the researcher is a founding member of the Nation. Analysis conducted to date indicates that musical transmission processes in the group develop predominantly through coexistence, observation, shared repetition, and active participation in rehearsals, processions, and rituals. Such elements suggest that musical transmission is constituted in a relational and bodily manner, articulating music, collective experience, the production of meaning, and belonging. Partial results also point out that musical practice seems to operate as an important device for identity elaboration and the symbolic re-inscription of blackness in the urban space, especially in the articulation between body, rituality, and Afro-diasporic memory. In this sense, the research seeks to contribute to the understanding of musical transmission as a socio-cultural and formative process that goes beyond the strictly sonic dimension.