Maira Gómez

Maira Gómez is a Colombian flutist, researcher, and Ethnomusicology doctoral student at the University of Aveiro. Holding a Master’s degree in Musical Performance, her artistic and academic trajectory thrives at the intersection of flute performance, cultural studies, and decolonial thought. Her work approaches Colombian music as situated cultural practices, examining the deep connections between memory, territory, and historical processes of displacement. Currently, her doctoral research investigates the Africanization of Colombian Caribbean music, exploring how diasporic memories and knowledge persist and transform within colonial legacies.

Adopting anthropological and gender-responsive perspectives, Maira views musical expressions not merely as aesthetic objects, but as living systems inseparable from the communities and bodies that produce them. This mindset directly shapes her performance style, which integrates critical listening, ethnographic fieldwork, and sustained dialogue with local traditions. Her research expertise spans the Colombian Caribbean and Afro-Colombian heritages, focusing on intergenerational transmission and the circulation of music between local and diasporic contexts. Her methodology seamlessly combines oral histories, archival research, and organological analysis

It is worth noting that he led community-oriented projects in San Basilio de Palenque focusing on percussion traditions and the Lumbalú practices of the Batata lineage — an experience that reinforced his commitment to the ethics of collaborative research — having secured funding under the ‘National Incentives Programme’ of Colombia’s Ministry of Culture, Arts and Knowledge. As an educator and mentor, Maira fosters the growth of performer-researchers. Her pedagogical approach encourages musicians to critically analyze the historical contexts of their repertoire, bridging the gap between theoretical inquiry and artistic execution.

Doctoral Project

Title
Rescoldo del Atlántico Negro: Africanización como contraconquista en la música del Caribe colombiano

Advisor
Jorge Castro Ribeiro

Abstract
This project examines the musical practices of African-descent communities in the Colombian Caribbean and its diaspora as transgenerational archives that transcend colonial epistemologies. Through a multi-sited ethnography involving these Africa-influenced communities, the study traces the genealogy of the drum through family lineages, conceptualising re-existence and territorialization as mutually constitutive processes. Focusing on instruments including the gaita, Caribbean black drum and gauta, the study analyses how each sonic object crystallizes historical dynamics of contact, transformation and expansion among Indigenous, Afro-Colombian and colonial traditions. It proposes Africanization as “counterconquest”: an autonomous historical process and critical epistemology that affirms human parity from within Afro-diasporic worlds while projecting territorial knowledge into contemporary academic and globalized arenas. Two key outcomes of this project stand out: a Virtual Museum of Music and Dance from the Colombian Caribbean and an installation entitled ‘Itinerancias del Caribe Negro’.