Postdigital Intercultures and Sociomaterial Assemblages: ‘Maranza’ Music as a Site of Agency, Technology, and Voice

Abstract

Intercultural research has progressively moved beyond purely culturalist interpretations towards approaches informed by complexity, intersectionality, and superdiversity. This perspective has increasingly intersected with media education studies, recognising that sociocultural and linguistic complexity develops within a postdigital ecosystem, where processes of diversification, marginalisation, and emancipation are mediated by digital technologies. This convergence has given rise to the field of Postdigital Intercultures. In this article this perspective is brought into dialogue with Science and Technology Studies (STS), which highlight the co-evolutionary relationships between technological innovation and sociocultural and educational contexts, thereby illuminating new forms of agency. Within this framework, the paper examines contemporary processes of youth subjectivation through the case of the so-called "maranza music", which emerged in urban peripheries and is characterised by the strong presence of young people with migrant backgrounds. These musical practices are analysed as the outcome of specific sociomaterial assemblages involving human actors, digital platforms, algorithms, smartphones, music-production software, and transnational cultural repertoires. The proposed approach moves beyond both technological determinism and purely culturalist interpretations of trap music, showing how the figure of the maranza emerges as a situated and relational subjectivity, shaped through the interaction of cultural practices, digital infrastructures, and dynamics of recognition and stigmatisation.