The Voice of the Rural - (Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology) by Alessandra Ciucci (Paperback)

About the Book

"If you Google Umbria, you'll likely see picturesque rolling hills and medieval villages perched on them. But in The Voice of the Rural, ethnomusicologist Alessandra Ciucci introduces us to the Moroccan migrant workers that labor in the province's Alta Valle del Tevere region, which has been transformed by agrobusiness. These migrants working in Umbria's tobacco fields and on its construction sites have been coming to the region for decades, and while some eventually save enough money to buy some land and build a house back home, most are only able to scrape together what little they can from season to season. Marginalized in Italy and far from their homes, these men turn to Moroccan traditions of music and poetry that romanticize the Moroccan countryside they have left, l-'arubiya, or the rural. Ciucci's ethnography is a rich analysis of l-'arubiya that unpacks how these men share the music and sound of the rural to create a culture of belonging in a foreign and inhospitable nation, gathering in groups to listen to recordings of the musical style and creating community that springs from the very particular Moroccan narratives and identity depicted in the music. The poetry conjures up local images, history, and tradition, evoking a personhood that allows these men to momentarily preserve a particular form of manhood inaccessible to them in Italian culture. In Italy, these men are perceived as threatening and sexually violent. But the sound of l-'arubiya signifies a different kind of masculinity, of what it means to be a "real man", someone virtuous, generous, and strong both physically and morally. Through close fieldwork with migrant men and careful analysis of the lives they live through music, Ciucci uncovers an important social dimension of Europe's evolving migration crisis: how migrants preserve a sense of self and of home in an inhospitable country, allowing them to endure in the face of incredible hardship"--

Book Synopsis

A moving portrait of the contemporary experiences of migrant Moroccan men.

Umbria is known to most Americans for its picturesque rolling hills and medieval villages, but to the many migrant Moroccan men who travel there, Umbria is better known for the tobacco fields, construction sites, small industries, and the outdoor weekly markets where they work. Marginalized and far from their homes, these men turn to Moroccan traditions of music and poetry that evoke the countryside they have left-- l-'arubiya, or the rural. In this book, Alessandra Ciucci takes us inside the lives of Moroccan workers, unpacking the way they share a particular musical style of the rural to create a sense of home and belonging in a foreign and inhospitable nation. Along the way, she uncovers how this culture of belonging is not just the product of the struggles of migration, but also tied to the reclamation of a noble and virtuous masculine identity that is inaccessible to Moroccan migrants in Italy.

The Voice of the Rural allows us to understand the contemporary experiences of migrant Moroccan men by examining their imagined relationship to the rural through sound, shedding new light on the urgent issues of migration and belonging.

Review Quotes

"This captivating, extensive ethnographic study underscores how the rural (l- 'arubiya) and the voice of the rural (sawt l- 'arubiya) shape a sense of place and space, belonging and identity among migrant Moroccan men in Italy. . . . Ciucci's translations and transliterations are phenomenal, making the extensive ethnographic accounts remarkably accessible to non-experts (linguistically and historically)."-- "African Studies Quarterly"

"By maintaining geography, nationalism, race, gender, class, labor exploitation, culture preservation, and loss of the music and voice traditions of the Moroccan old country within the frame, Ciucci paves a new way of understanding the anthropology of work as
a distinct realm of scholarship. The book's social and linguistic perspectives on the psychology of trauma and the persistent musical habits inherent to migration are novel lenses through which one can view agrarian labor anthropologically. Indeed, Ciucci describes for anthropologists, ethnomusicologists, and migrant laborers a way to, together, hold knowledge and build understanding across cultures."
-- "Society for the Anthropology of Work"

"Voicing the Rural is more than a book about North African migration to Europe. With one foot firmly in the vast, phosphate-rich plains region of central Morocco and the other planted in the "urbanized countryside" of central Italy, Alessandra Ciucci vividly explores how Moroccan migrant men use earthy fragments of sung colloquial poetry to open paths between the rural lives they have left in North Africa and the other kinds of rural lives they are creating in Europe." --Jonathan Glasser, author of The Lost Paradise: Andalusi Music in Urban North Africa

"This is a fascinating and entirely original piece of work. I know of no work in the field that deals in such depth with how critically important music from the home country is to the lives of migrant workers from the Middle East. Ciucci offers us a detailed and fascinating investigation of the multiple ways in which this musical tradition carries meaning for these migrants." --Ted Swedenburg, author of Memories of Revolt: The 1936-39 Rebellion and the Palestinian National Past

About the Author

Alessandra Ciucci is assistant professor of music at Columbia University.