Complementing the analysis of the dominant and, to a certain extent, unavoidable scopic regimes through which Mexicos troubles and social ills since the War on Drugs have been witnessed, Sonic Strategies focuses on the diverse sonic production without which spectacular and senseless violence would be experienced more like an extended silent horror movie. In Bakers fascinating study, musical and aural assemblages not only reveal deep causal connections to the dark scenarios that she convincingly describes as 'a country in war with itself,' but also to the vital channels of collective sense-making and resistance provided by cultural producers in both Mexico and diasporic Mexico, who call attention to the transformative political and aesthetic potential of music and performance. "Ignacio Corona, co-editor of Gender Violence at the U.S.-Mexico Border: Media Representation and Public Response
"Christina Bakers expertly researched Sonic Strategies reminds readers to listen for violence. Baker uses aural registers to uncover what is hidden, destroyed, manipulated, or made invisible through political, gendered, and narco practices. Bakers fresh approach to bodies performing, emitting, absorbing, refracting, and reacting to sound as violence displaces the visual and gestural for new sensorial understanding, if we are willing to listen." Sarah M. Misemer, author of Theatrical Topographies: Spatial Crises in Uruguayan Theater Post-2001
"Sonic Strategies offers a stunning account of Mexico City's vibrant soundscapes in the post-2006 context of violence, feminicide, and the nation's war against drugs. Establishing bridges between musicology, sound studies, ethnomusicology, and theater, Baker focuses on the strategies artists use to bear auditory witness and create communities of resistance, survival, mourning, and care." Brenda Werth, author of Theatre, Performance, and Memory Politics in Argentina
"Christina Baker's book is an engaging exploration of contemporary theater and performance artists in Mexico that brings to the fore the centrality of sound in their efforts to respond to the multiple forms of violence impacting lifeand deathin the country since the 2006 declaration of a War on Drugs."Sarah J. Townsend, author of The Unfinished Art of Theater: Avant-Garde Intellectuals in Mexico and Brazil
