Iñigo Sánchez

Biography

Íñigo Sánchez Fuarros is a Senior Researcher (Científico Titular) at the Instituto de Ciencias del Patrimonio (INCIPIT), Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), in Santiago de Compostela. Previously, he was a Ramón y Cajal Fellow (2020-2024) at the same institution, contract researcher (2019-2020), and postdoctoral fellow (2011-2016) at the Instituto de Etnomusicologia – Centro de Estudos em Música e Dança (INET-md), Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa (NOVA FCSH). In 2017 he was part of the research team for the AHRC project Understanding the Role of Sound and Music in Conflict Transformation: The Mozambique Case Study developed at the Sonic Arts Research Centre (SARC), Queen’s University Belfast.

His research trajectory focuses on the study of music and sound as social phenomena to address processes of change in contemporary societies. This line of work has evolved from the analysis of relationships between music and identity in migratory contexts toward the study of urban sound cultures, developing two main areas: the intersection between heritage, conflict, and citizen participation, and the material dimension of festive celebrations in the configuration of Galicia’s rural-urban cultural landscape.

As principal investigator, he has led three competitive research projects: “Sounds of Tourism” (FCT, 2018-2022), developing innovative methodologies to analyze tourism’s impact on urban soundscapes; “HabitPAT” (MICINN, 2021-2024), analyzing contradictions in intangible heritage safeguarding policies; and “PALCOS” (GAIN, 2022-2025), exploring the material culture of popular festivals in rural Galicia.

He is the author of the monograph Cubaneando en Barcelona. Música, migración y experiencia urbana (CSIC, 2012) and has co-edited the volumes Postcolonial Aeromobilities: Branding, Cultural Governance and Tourism Imageries (Routledge, 2025) and Ambiance, Tourism and the City (Routledge, 2023). His research has been published in international academic journals (Western Folklore, Journal of World Popular Music, MUSICultures, Transactions, City & Community) and in collective volumes such as Fiesta y ciudad: pluriculturalidad e integración (CSIC, 2008), Made in Spain. Studies in Popular Music (Routledge, 2013), Musical Performance and the Changing City (Routledge, 2013), Towards an Anthropology of Ambient Sound (Routledge, 2017), and Exploring Nightlife: Space, Society and Governance (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018), among others.

He was editor of TRANS-Revista Transcultural de Música (2013-2019) and is a member of the editorial boards of Cadernos de Arte e Antropologia and Archiv für Textmusikforschung. He coordinates XEITO, Laboratorio de creación etnográfica at INCIPIT, an infrastructure that combines research and artistic practice.