Protest Song and Countercultural Discourses of Resistance in 1960s Colombia

Abstract

In Colombia, the tumultuous second half of the twentieth century kicked off with a fierce conflict between the Liberal and Conservative parties known as La Violencia (The Violence, ca. 1948-1958). Following a brief period of military rule (1953-1957), a bipartisan system of shared governance, the National Front (1958-1974), brought about some respite to the sectarian bloodshed. However, the exclusionary two-party system precipitated new lines of conflict between the state and communist guerrillas. Along with the political turmoil, the nation was also undergoing an era of profound cultural change. This essay examines three countercultural-oppositional movements that captivated a wide swath of youth in Colombia’s biggest cities during the 1960s: the canción protesta (protest song) movement, the rock and roll subculture denominated as nueva ola (new wave), and nadaísmo, a rabblerousing avantgarde literary movement. I analyze the correspondences and discontinuities in the ways adherents of these movements conceived of the ideal means to carry out social, cultural, and political resistance. While there were fundamental tensions between the “discourses of resistance” linked to these three countercultural streams, I argue that their convergence in the late 1960s facilitated the emergence of a commercial form of canción protesta.