| Publication |
2014.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The Panama Canal's handover from US governance to Panamanian sovereignty concluded on 31 December 1999. 'Patria Entera' (loosely translated as 'Whole Homeland'), a state-sponsored open-air concert, commemorated the handover and promulgated new readings of the Panama Canal Zone's decolonisation process. Concert headliner Rubén Blades deployed repertory and symbolic strategies to counterbalance Panamanians' ambivalence regarding the handover. 'Patria Entera' recast the Panama Canal Zone as an accessible space and narrated the handover as the Panamanian citizenry's collective inheritance of the Canal and accompanying Zone. Yet the concert's discursive arc overlooked persistent and emerging challenges.
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