Celebrating nostalgia: Music, memory and the production of a sense of belonging among the Cuban diaspora in Barcelona

Abstract

This article explores the role of music in the production of a sense of community among the Cuban diaspora in Barcelona. Through an ethnographic account of a small Cuban restaurant that functions as a gathering place for the Cuban population, I will analyse the capacity of music to mobilise individual and collective memories that, in turn, foster a sense of belonging and identification for its Cuban patrons. Against other approaches focused strictly on the musical, I argue about the need to incorporate into the analysis the multisensorial context in which music occurs. Thus, we will be able to account for the power of music to evoke, in situations of displacement as a result of migration, memories of the homeland with a particular force and efficacy.