The Soundscape and Its Importance in the Civil Resistance Power Paradigm: We Exist Because We Sound

In civil resistance struggles, sound is most often understood as a means of communication—a tool for transmitting messages, demands, or emotions, a way to an end. This paper proposes an alternative analytical approach to sound, and particularly to the soundscape, examined through the lenses of dynamic power relations and civil resistance theory. It argues that sound should not be treated merely as an instrument of action, but rather as an end in itself. From this perspective, the soundscape—and the collective capacity to perform, occupy, transform, and contest it—constitutes a central dimension of power in nonviolent struggle. Accordingly, producing sound and challenging the soundscape imposed by opponents, as well as responding to counter-sounding practices, should be understood as key mechanisms through which power is exercised. Acts such as collective music-making, chanting, noise, silence, and acoustic confrontation emerge as arenas in which political authority, presence, and resistance are enacted. This argument is empirically grounded in the practices of musician-activists from The Big Chirimera Band (Gran Banda Chirimera) during Colombia’s Great National Strike of 2021, while also situating these practices within broader nonviolent repertoires across different historical and global contexts. Drawing on a Participatory Action Research (PAR) methodology developed since 2021, combined with ethnographic research conducted during the National Strike, the paper proposes analytical tools for examining power from a soundscape perspective. Additionally, the paper reviews key literature on collective action and social movements, highlighting how agency-oriented political theories have long referenced sound and sonic practices, yet have rarely incorporated the soundscape itself as an analytical category. Methodologically, the ethnographic process involved the author becoming a traditional chirimía drummer (tamborero) and an active member of the Great Chirimera Band during the strike in Popayán, Cauca. This engagement continued through collaborative work with the chirimía guild in their ongoing struggle for public and political recognition, improved livelihood conditions, and the sustainability of the tradition. The research includes in-depth interviews with leaders and practitioners of the chirimía tradition, focus groups with social movement leaders, and sustained “in situ performance” during and after the strike. Finally, by advancing a soundscape-centered understanding of power, this paper contributes to nonviolent movement theory by demonstrating how the capacity to sound—and to shape collective sonic environments—opens new possibilities for understanding power, embodiment, and resistance. It further contributes to body theory by arguing that bodies are not only social and political entities, but also fundamentally sonic entities.