ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we will analyze a series of high-profile international musical events held in Cúcuta, on the border between Colombia and Venezuela. By means of these mega-concerts, the Latin popular music industry and its star system sought to intervene into this region’s conflict-ridden political landscape, displaying civic and humanitarian engagement before a global media audience. These two concerts, Paz Sin Fronteras [Peace Without Borders] in 2008 and Venezuela Aid in 2019 achieved considerable media coverage and marked two significant moments in Latin pop music’s political outreach. They are rooted in a complex regime of subjectivities that re-conceptualizes the civic role propagated by cultural industries in terms of consumer citizenship. We read these kinds of cultural events as innovative acts of political communication that manage affectivities and interpellate their spectators; produce communal experiences in ritualized forms of cultural consumption; and provide guidance for a supposed means of civic and humanitarian action.
