Cumbia Villera or the Complex Construction of Masculinity and Femininity in Contemporary Argentina

Abstract

Since its introduction in the early sixties by groups like Los Wawanco (a group of mostly Colombian and Central American students living in Argentina), Colombian cumbia rapidly became a dance of choice for Argentine popular sectors (an Argentine sociopolitical term that encompasses working-class and lower-middle-class people). Its popularity was particularly marked in Buenos Aires’s suburbs and the suburbs of other major cities of the country, where many of its followers were internal migrants from the countryside.