Dr. Larisa Kingston Mann discusses her work in Barranquilla with the historically stigmatized picós (mobile soundsystems) and champeta (the primary musical genre associated with them) during an installment of the Office of Research and Graduate Studies’ Fall 2020 Graduate Speaker Series. Dr. Mann speaks about her research alongside native Afro-Colombians, widely named as the heart of la cultura picotera, who were not even counted by the national census or formally recognized as having distinct culture until recent years. Her work examines how marginalized communities use cultural practices to create spaces and moments of resistance and negotiation with colonial power. She is especially interested in the technological and legal contexts that allow these spaces to exist, or how people redraw those contexts in moments of creativity and communion.

Larisa Kingston Mann has a PhD in Jurisprudence & Social Policy from Berkeley Law, at the University of California, at Berkeley, and an MSc from the London School of Economics. Her work analyzes the relationship between law, technology, sovereignty, and creativity, especially focusing on the ways changing media technologies affect communities’ ability to flourish.