Chris Batterman Cháirez, a new assistant professor of ethnomusicology at the University of California, Berkeley, is focusing his research and teaching on how music moves across borders and cultures. Raised in Mexico City before moving to the United States with his family, Batterman Cháirez experienced firsthand how music travels with people and influences different communities.
“The music moved with my family,” said Batterman Cháirez. He noted that as he spent time between Mexico and the U.S., he observed how musical traditions shifted and adapted in each setting.
After completing college, Batterman Cháirez lived in Atlanta and Brazil, performing as an upright bass player in jazz ensembles. During graduate studies at the University of Chicago, he returned to Mexico to study traditional P’urhépecha music called pirekua in Michoacán. He noticed that concertgoers would livestream performances for relatives who had migrated to places like California, North Carolina, and Illinois. “Seeing this confirmed music’s importance and the fact that it’s always in motion with people,” he said.
This fall semester, Batterman Cháirez is teaching a course titled Music, Movement and Migration in Latin America. The class examines how music has accompanied migrants over borders such as those between the U.S. and Mexico or Venezuela and Colombia, as well as throughout the Caribbean islands. It also considers transnational genres like reggaeton that developed through exchanges between New York hip hop scenes and Caribbean musical traditions.
Batterman Cháirez believes these topics are especially relevant for students today given ongoing global migration challenges. “We’re in a moment in U.S. political history where the discourse around migration is so vitriolic, and migrants themselves are in such a precarious position,” he said. “The Bay Area has historically been a huge destination for migrants coming from around the world to make a home here. Many Berkeley students have a connection to migrants in some way, whether it’s through their own parents or their friends and families, and I’m hoping everyone can see themselves in the course a little bit.”
As part of his class curriculum, students are asked to create musical movement maps reflecting their own journeys or connections to migration—whether across continents or within the United States itself.
“I hope people will explore their own connections to migration, and reassess their relationship to music and movement and how it has impacted their lives,” Batterman Cháirez said. “Music is in everyone’s life in some way.”
By encouraging students to consider how music shapes social experiences for others as well as themselves, Batterman Cháirez aims for them to recognize both cultural differences and shared human experiences: “How does this change the way I think about music?” He hopes broadening perspectives on familiar genres will help students reflect on commonalities across cultures.
