Del Cafetero, de Maruja Hinestrosa, al Hombre macho, de Adán Guevara: Género y transnacionalidad entre Colombia y Costa Rica

Latin American music has a wide spectrum of shared traditions that challenge the conventional notion of national frontiers and open up discussions about personal, regional, national and continental factors of identity. This article uses the example of a Colombian “pasillo” composed by a woman originally from Nariño, which was re-interpreted by a Costa Rican singer and composer and territorialized as a representative piece of the Guanacaste folklore. The original piece is known in Colombia as el Cafetero, by the pianist from Pasto, Maruja Hinestrosa Eraso. The Costa Rican version is titled El hombre macho, and for many years it has been attributed to Adán Guevara Centeno from Guanacaste. This article aims at deepening and analyzing the scope of such correspondences, pointing out the relationships between the histories of music in both countries and questioning the regionalist positions surrounding these compositions. The methodology integrates the analysis of written and sound sources, in articulation with field work that started in Pasto (Colombia) and was then complemented with a research placement in San José and Guanacaste (Costa Rica). The results evidence the close links found in multiple Latin American music pieces, suggesting a discussion based on two relevant concepts for the music masterpieces in question: gender and transnationalism.