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Under the sand, Reggeatón has been danced : a visual
and sensory exploration of the invisible infrastructure
of reggeatón
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Introduction: Reggeaton as ‘Infrastructure’ ?

Reggeatón is is a musical genre that has been globally thriving for the last two decades. A
visual and sensorial research has been undertaken to make visible the affective and socio-
cultural circuitries that enable its success and survival as an entity. Although there are
many invisible aspects that drive it, this research focuses on certain aspects that are
ignored in popular culture and in popular criticism towards the genre, and so to visibilize
infrastructural properties of reggeatón with which audiences don’t normally consciously
engage; it’s affective properties and their potential on sculpting bodies.

This has been done through questionnaires, secondary data analysis, fieldwork
ethnography, informal interviews and a varied use of visual and sensory methodologies
that will be described in the section below. Due to the brevity of this essay, the research
process will not be described in full detail. This is an attempt to draw out the methods and
theories used to enable ways of engaging and viewing reggeatón through the conceptual
lens of ‘infrastructures’. Researching it through this lens aids to identify aspects of its
system that remain under the surface.

Planning and sensing ‘public engagement’

This research, was collaborative from the start insofar as we were constantly receiving and
giving feedback to and from our colleagues. This helped one another to comprehend not
only the term ‘infrastructure’ and all of the other concepts that constitute it, but also to
understand in which ways the research was working, and therefore was comprehensible
for any given audience. Working on this basis, every piece of research made was
exposed, creating a network for public engagement between researchers.
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This already started to give insights to the concept of infrastructure, it would be necessary
to make the research comprehensible within a popular infrastructure. In the seminars,
there was a constant dialogue and reflection between a wide range of theories of
infrastructure and texts that analyzed the infrastructures each researcher had chosen.

Research Questions

1. How does reggaetón’s infrastructural power maintain gender (sexual)

inequalities and latin identities, and how is this being tackled through new
reconfigurations of lyrics and through a changing signification of ‘perreo’ dancing 1 ?

2. Can a coherent relationship between lyrics and rhythm stop the reproduction of sexual
inequalities between genders?

Realization 1: Reggeatón’s infrastructural embeddedness and sonic bodies

Embeddedness (Leigh Star 1999: 381), which is when ‘an infrastructure is sunk into and
inside of other structures, social arrangements, and technologies’. Reggeaton’s
‘embeddedness’ within other infrastructures produces a variation of sonic bodies, for
example Fairley interprets the lyrics as a barometer of Cuban everyday life (2006:472),
given its popularity and its presence in popular culture. This would be characterized by its
embeddedness.

In her words, there is an implicit ‘coordination’ between different infrastructures, but, the
problem arises in their nature, as infrastructural systems are metaphorically and physically
veiled beneath the surface (Kaika and Swyngedouw, 2000; Leigh Star 1999 in Graham &
Thrift 2007).

Finding the infrastructural qualities was confusing at first, it seemed that there was no clear
infrastructural properties but a complex conglomeration of elements that tangle with one
another. Henriques’ (2011) epistemology on sound systems and sonic bodies was of great

1‘The typical dance-style associated with women in reggaeton’ (Araüna et al. 2020), the latin
version of twerk. A dance that is known for its sexual explicitness. Described in Fairley as: ‘It's a
move of the waist, a swirl, circling the hips and waist w without any bad intention’ (2006:479)
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nourishment. The concepts ‘users’ (Leigh Star 1999) could be translated to the concept of
‘sonic bodies’ from Henriques (2011), so reggeatón started to be seen more as an
infrastructure thanks to this concepts that shed light to each other. But what within the
experiences of the sonic bodies is taken for granted, is invisible to its users, and remains
unstudied?

Realization 2: the invisible, the unstudied

That which is hidden and ‘taken for granted’ and ‘remains unstudied’ is what determines
the essential infrastructure of a system (Leigh Star 1999). From hereon, the research was
more based in exploring its invisibilities, the ethereal and immanent reality that is not
commonly perceived, neither by its users, nor by its haters. Although the research
questions were focused on infrastructures that were more visible (as seen above), these
questions led to more profound questions one the nature of the ‘underground’, ‘infra’
nature of this sound system.

With this observation reggeaton’s infrastructural qualities, and the mutual embeddedness
(Leigh Star 1999: 381) between reggeaton’s infrastructure and the cuban social
infrastructure, which should bee contrasted with other infrastructures within which
reggeatón is also embedded. This realization would be later empirically tested through
questionnaires (Appendix II). Through this realization and when analyzing the
questionnaire-data, the research questions started to mutate, although they had given a
right direction, they were no longer adequate and needed to evolve

Realization 3: Performing displacing the infrastructure, embedding it elsewhere

From here, it became of interest to observe how its displacements or translocations have
occurred and affected different societies and also to experiment for the sake of this
research with a displacement of its qualities to apply them upon diverse infrastructures in
which reggeatón is not normally embedded, and to observe the ways in which it could
operate, mutate, and approach a range of different audiences.

Henriques states that there is an intimate relationship between sound and embodiment,
and that within this interaction the body creates analogies of the music that is ‘hitting’ it.
This conceptualization was triggering for the imagination in many ways, it raised questions
on which materials could be used to represent this reality, that was verified empirically as
the questionnaire data was analyzed (see Appendix II).
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Using performance as method was suitable. Burke (2005, p.47) ‘[proposes an]
"occasionalist turn", [that] enables a critique of "historical method" that challenges "simple
linear accounts of social or cultural change", gives "attention" to "objects and activities"
that were not seen as important (e.g. "clothes, everyday language, dancing and
gesturing”)’ (cited in Roberts 2008:28).

All of the methodologies worked to nurture the research process and also to construct
research outputs for the public to engage with. How would the performance trigger the
audience, both the virtual and the immediate audience that was present at the moment of
the performance? The methodologies were both a way to engage the public and to make
the infrastructures visible, as well as a way to create visual and sensory materials with
which the audience could reflect on the nature of the infrastructure. In this sense, the
methodologies were highly performative, served as a way of engaging the audience
sensorially (Pink 2005), and acted both as a visual method as a visual output (Pink 2005)
as new methods were deemed apt as new data emerged.

Using video to record the performances, served both to emulate the fashion of reggeatón
videoclips and to dislocate video to different meanings given to reggeatón, and to observe
the reactions of reggeatón users to this video as the video gets published and the public
can interact with it. As Pink states, this is the way visual methods should be used, to
introduce oneself within the visual culture of that that is being researched (Pink 1997;
1999; 2007).

The Research question transforms: an infrastructure that delivers sexual

embodiments in public space

But that was going to be portrayed in this videos, and how would they be displayed in the
exhibition setting to encourage an intimate public engagement?

The questions asked at the beginning were leading to different questions. The aim of this
research was first to identify whether a transformation of reggeaton’s lyrical discourse
would maintain the dance that responds to its rhythm, or rather if the sexual ideology
contained within it.In the words of Fairley, reggeaton’s ‘masturbatory dance is done proudly
as if the woman’s body was a glorious choice, a public expression of male and female
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libido’ (2006:481). The lyrics also feeds into the constitution of the dances it becomes
questionable whether a transformation in the lyrical discourse would be successful, given
the importance it has in giving meaning to the mainstream dance (AS OTHER STUDIES
SHOW).

The questionnaires were analyzed to find commonalities between sonic bodies/users

embodiments and experienced of the music. Analyzing the answers, led to the realization
that there was a transcendental, liberating component in dancing, where sexual ‘energies’
where liberated as they were permitted, but is it permitted only inn the realms of the
infrastructure? Should we look back to the origins of the dance that are not usually talked
about, that remains invisible?

Historical review
Looking at the history of reggeatón both of its lyrics, rhythm and dance became a point of
action to understand the origins of it as an infrastructure and its raison-de-être, to teach for
the transcendental and liberating embodiments that the infrastructure allows. As Larkin
states, we need to understand system building, in this case the ‘sound system’ (Henriques

‘The roots of reggeatón are Black, transnational, and spiritual’ (Nichols date 82)

It is hard to deny the African diasporic identity of Reggaeton when one see the styles and
listens to the syncopated drum-based rhythms and call-and-response refrains (Nichols 84).

Tim Brennan (2008), author of Secular Devotion, argues that popular music in the Americas is
popular in part because it is so heavily influenced by neo-African religious practices (Castillo-
Garsow and Nichols, 2016)’ .

‘For Marx (1990), infrastructural technologies were not just material things but enacted of
history itself (p. 91) as historical development unfolded’.
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2011), keep focus on contingency, and also to see how infrastructure gives insights on
government, religious, and social practices (Larkin 2013:328).

As Larkin also states, there is the necessity of accounting for how the translation of one
element into another occurs, for example, how a religious doctrine transforms into a social
practice, that might be dance. The religion has then been translated into dance. It is
important to note the strong link the dance has to Santería, a neo-african religious practice
that stems from west-African tribal religions (Fairley 2006).

Performance and video as Method and Output

i. Fieldwork at the beach: dislocating the infrastructure

As seen in the audiovisual piece (Incarnations of Reggeaton’s Elements), the first
recording shows dancing of two women in the beach. Through the headphones, they are
listening to Reggeaton songs, that are inaudible to the public. Doing the fieldwork was an
ethnographic practice itself, as people walked past, looked, or stopped in their afternoon
beach-walks to look at this joyful event. The purpose was both to dislocate the
infrastructure and embed it in a space where it is not normally common, although it
represents the space in which it was born, it symbolizes the diaspora as arriving in the sea
from other lands, and so it becomes a relevant space. Both to represent the invisibility of
the infrastructure, and to dislocate the current way in which the infrastructure operates.

As we embedded the infrastructure in the coast of our urban beach, a group of teenagers
stopped and laughed, all male, as if intrigued by the craziness of these two women who
were dancing in a beach instead of waiting to the nighttime to go to the club. In this
instance, the infrastructure had been displaced, to a setting that would perhaps only be
reserved to a beach party, or to a reggeatón videoclip that was taking place in the beach.
Wasn’t that what was happening?

ii. Video as method to navigate and interrupt visual culture

-Russel, C. (1959) Experimental ethnography. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1999.

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Video-recording was used as a method for two reasons: first, due to its ability to record the
bodily movements associated with the music, second, to utilize the same media that is
used to create a reggeatón aesthetic in popular media. The importance of the video is an
important part for the maintainance of the dance, and utilizing this as a research method
makes the camera be an important artifact to engage with the world of reggeatón, to
participate in its world-making (Pink 2007). Both in the beach as a place where the
infrastructure was displaced and received stares of surprise as if we were suddenly naked
in a non-nudist beach, and in the club, where the camera and the dancing were no
reasons of stare or of ragging. Both are seen in the audiovisual piece, though the stares
were not recorded as visual data, as it was deemed as an ethical risk due to the age of the
teenagers.

However Fairley’s (2006) claim is especially relevant to the cuban society, as it is there
where he undertook his ethnography. He attributes the importance of the lyrics within the
cuban culture, and although the popularity of certain songs with their relevant lyrical
content is also important in the canaries, it is interesting to view the different signification's
given to the music, and this was done through questionnaires. Although the data collected
would not be enough to do a fair comparison, it offers a place from which to depart and
perhaps from which to further investigate in the future.

The answers given in the online questionnaires gave information on the way the music is
experienced and how the ‘sonic bodies’ involved in the infrastructure react both to the
genre’s rhythms and to its lyrics, as well as to the allegations of its misogyny and to its
glorification in the post-feminist discourse.

iii. In the club: La Pollera Colorá

It was possible to do some field working a reggeatón club in London (La Pollera Colorá)
with two of the users that participated inn the questionnaire. Interviews in the club was
undertaken with two people, one of them was recorded as he agreed for me to record his
down-lip where he had a tattoo that said ‘dale’, a word that is of common use in latin
cultures and in reggeatón songs. He showed me when I asked him to interview him, as if
to state that he is a number one fan of reggeatón, his interview is in the video-footage.
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Informal interviews to acquaintances were also undertaken although they weren’t the main
data source, but a way of complementing and to relate the interview data to the
questionnaire data.

One of the informal interviews was to an ex-user from Uruguay that aspired to become a
professional dancer, that appeared to hate reggeatón nowadays. She didn’t deem it to
have the essence of ‘dance’. She said, dance is more elegant, it is not objectifying nor
sexual. But once the music was on she could not restrain her body from being succumbed
by the music and the dance style she so much critiqued. She became nostalgic and could
not stop singing to the lyrics, playing old-school songs and dancing ferociously, and said:
‘forget everything I said before! I love reggeatón!’. She had been dancing it since she was
12, footage on her reaction to the music can be seen in the video (see instance in
Appendix). As we have continued to speak, she has started to listen to reggeatón again.
As an Uruguayan living in London, it might reestablish the sense of liberation from
everyday life as well as it brought back the positive side of the infrastructure, whilst she
continues to discriminate the sexist with which she does not agree.

iv. Poetic performance: proposing other analogies to represent the infrastructural

affects
This is what Henriques (2011) would call ‘sonic dominance’, in his words: ‘It brings you to
yourself, to and through your senses and it brings you to and with others sharing these
convivial joys’ (2011:1). How would this be presented in visual and sensory modes of
public engagement? How would the trance-like effect that reggeaton’s sonic dominance
has in its users be described as a part of its infrastructure? how valuable are the ‘footage’
videos to visualize (Wagner 2006) the infrastructure of reggeatón? in which ways can the
footage be manipulated (Guggenheim) in order to better represent the infrastructural
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properties that have been revealed through the questionnaires, field work observation and
informal interviews via WhatsApp and in person?

examples beast type song, the last of england, body paint,

Engaging with the research outputs

Something to think about is also which public were the outputs directed to. Having into
consideration that the exhibition was going to take place in London, where reggeatón is
more of a foreign cultural import with which not everyone can relate, although it has strong
connections to R&B music which is more popular here and people can dance it, and
although reggeatón dance movements are becoming more popular within popular culture
and are practiced regularly in clubs, as the ‘twerk’ become more and more part of popular
culture.

LATIN OR BRITISH audience?

Differente femininities

The video that was produced as the main piece to present in the exhibition was later
discerned to not be an ideal piece of output, although it served as a sensorial and visual
ways of experimenting and creating anthropological knowledge, that is very different to
producing visual and sensorial material for the public to engage with and to experience
and understand the infrastructural properties of reggeatón.

In presenting the anthropological data in the group chat that was created as the alternative
to exhibit due to the cover situation, the feedback was varied. The personal constitutions
as well as the socio-cultural backgrounds, but anyhow their reaction was valuable as data
to evaluate the research process and whether its output was a correct translation and
directed to a wide range of audiences.
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The general commentary was that they expected some kind of ‘infrastructure’ that allowed
them to experience all the research outcomes. Not a video that explained what the
research outcomes were. Although the utilization of video was a way of emulating the
video-clip aesthetic of reggeatón whilst transforming the narrative, it is true that the mare in
which this engaged the public was only visual and not sensorial. Of course, this was not
only what was going to be presented in the exhibition where all works on infrastructure
presented bob the group would be arranged for the public to engage with the concept of
infrastructure applied to different kinds of infrastructure, which made the audience reflect
on the concept and become conscious of the its implications in social life.

The research gave different answers to what was being asked. In studying the historical
origins of reggeatón it became important how the rhythm that constitutes it also constitutes
different genres, so that the infrastructure of the rhythm, also embeds within different
infrastructures that create different musical genres, and different ways of living. The
popularity of reggeatón today and of other genres that have the same or similar origins
does and should not top unnoticed. What histories are we consuming as popular culture
subjects? And how is this analyzable from reggeaton’s point of view? and how ca this
model be applied to other musical genres in order to understand current implications in this
infrastructural practice?

It has become obvious that the infrastructural practice has evolved so much, that
reggeatón has constructed bridges, and its dance has expanded throughout the globe
together with dance s of a similar nature. It was essential to represent this in order for
the public to engage directly, not with the genre, but with its dismantled assemablage,
historical precedence, poetic analogies. Perhaps focusing on the positive implications of
reggeatón is commodifying and problematic, and that is something to have into
consideration if this research were to be continued.

Complications, auto ethnography, and anxieties of representation

Complications gave data on an auto ethnographic dimension of the research, the
researcher’s own emotions became entangled with the complexities of this infrastructure,
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which is driven by irrational forces that have roots in a distant past. My subjective
experience of the researcher is also important to have into account, as I am also
embedded within this infrastructure, reggeatón being an essential part of popular culture in
my country of origin. In trying to depict all of the complexities that constitute reggeatón and
are underrepresented, I acquired a quasi-militant attitude, to fight against reductionist
criticisms, and to defend, justify and rationalize reggeaton’s affective powers and their
cultural importance. As well as the necessity to protect its most valuable but invisible
heritage. Although it is invisible, to can be seen in the dance.

In an attempt to representing all the complexities, the data too became extremely complex,
and different sorts of visual and sensorial data was being produced, creating the same
confusion with which the research began. Perhaps the production of data became a vivid
representation of the chaotic, visceral, and archaic nature of reggeaton’s infrastructural
assemblage. Perhaps the complication and the complexities constituted the essence of
the exhibition, and its complications would express the complexities in the exhibitory
space.

Wayne and wax, militant because of reductionism, complex affect on people’s

bodies
the struggle of representing the complexity, and trying to produce as much data as
possible as double edged sword.
Navigating through the complexity, create complexity.
exotic bad or good importance, embedded more in latin american societies

Consideraciones for future research

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word count: 3.675-282: 3.300 y pico

References

Araüna, N., Tortajada, I. and Figueras-Maz, M., 2019. Feminist Reggaeton in Spain: Young
Women Subverting Machismo Through ‘Perreo’. YOUNG, 28(1), pp.32-49.

Castillo-Garsow, M. and Nichols, J., 2016. La Verdad. Ohio: e Ohio State University, pp.
80-89.

Fairley, J., 2006. Dancing back to front: regeton, sexuality, gender and transnationalism in
Cuba. Popular Music, 25(3), pp.471-488.

Graham, S. and Thrift, N., 2007. Out of Order. Theory, Culture & Society, 24(3), pp.1-25.

Henriques, J., 2011. Sonic Bodies. New York: Continuum.

Larkin, B., 2013. The Politics and Poetics of Infrastructure. Annual Review of
Anthropology, 42(1), pp.327-343.

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Pink, S. 2007 The visual in Ethnography: Photography, Video, Cultures and Individuals. In:
Doing visual Ethnography

Rivera-Servera, R., 2009. Musical Trans(actions): Intersections in Reggaetón. Revista

Transcultural de Música, [online] Available at: <https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/
822/82220946014.pdf> [Accessed 21 May 2020].

Russel, C. (1959) Experimental ethnography. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1999.

Star, Leigh S., 1999. The Ethnography of Infrastructure. American Behavioral Scientist,
43(3), pp.377-391.

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Latour and deleuze and Guattari

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Appendix

I. Sketches

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Sketch 2: the paper on which this is drawn is

recycled. Though it does not display a reggeatón
song, the idea was to unite the body with the
music sheet, denoting a unification of body and
music as inspired by Henriques’ epistemology.
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II. Answers to questionnaire:

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III. Drawings
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