LAUSR

ABSTRACT This article discusses the notion of amiguismo within Chilean indie music circles. Amiguismo is the contention that indie music in Chile is produced through interpersonal favours, thus hamstringing the sector’s economic and artistic development. The article analyses how two indie music venues in Santiago are composed by interconnected musicians and media workers. It contends that complaints about amiguismo arise as participants seek to make their activities of musical production and circulation economically sustainable. The struggle over resources highlights the politics of sociality underlying music production, which clashes with historical understandings of art, the public sphere, and the market as a-social. The notion of amiguismo thus highlights the political dimension of musical and social life within the ideologies of capitalist modernity that deny such politics. The article argues for the importance of examining economic concerns in analyses of the formation of public culture and musical meaning, and suggests that musical study can contribute to understanding the contradictions of capitalism.