This roundtable brings together graduate students, early-career scholars, and established researchers to critically examine the intersections between ethnomusicology and late capitalism. We explore how sound, movement, and musical practices actively engage in resisting and transforming neoliberal structures of oppression—racism, sexism, homophobia, and labor precarization—and the rationalities that shape both academia and global societies. Grounded in ethnographic and historical studies from a historical materialist and dialectical perspective, we challenge the ideological naturalization of capitalism as the sole social paradigm, engaging with Mark Fisher’s concept of “capitalist realism.” The discussion will critically assess ethnomusicology’s ideological and historical limitations while proposing new theoretical approaches and, more importantly, contributing to sound praxis—the articulation of discourse, actions, and practices around sound—to confront the global order and imagine anti-capitalist and socialist futures. Panelist 1 examines the rapper as an organic intellectual in Rio de Janeiro’s hip-hop scene, analyzing the limits and possibilities of counter-hegemonic praxis in neoliberal contexts. Panelist 2 explores the intersections of race, class, and musical practices in Brazilian Pentecostalism, focusing on its expansion among working-class Black communities. Panelist 3 analyzes Argentine independent labels using cassettes to resist neoliberalism and foster collective engagement during economic crises. Panelist 4 explores studies on music in Brazil and Latin America that illuminate the intersections between labor and precarity in late capitalism, while pointing toward new social, political, and aesthetic possibilities. Panelist 5 considers musical fantasy in Bombay as a lens for neoliberalism’s fissures, proposing attention to the implausible as an anti-capitalist ethnomusicological method.
