Panel: “Unsilent Strangers” and Cohabitation: Japan’s Multicultural Coexistence and Musicking as Seen through European Experiences

Michiyo Yoneno-Reyes (Chair)

 

Two presenters in the panel represent contributors to the book Unsilent Strangers: Music, Minorities, Coexistence, Japan, edited by Hugh de Ferranti, Masaya Shishikura, and Michiyo Yoneno-Reyes (National University of Singapore Press, 2023). The edited collection examines the central role music plays in the ongoing adjustment, conciliation, and transformation of newcomers and “hosts” alike. Studies therein highlight migrants’ proactive engagement with music vis-à-vis relations with their respective host societies. They reveal inherent issues and dilemmas, as well as opportunities for connection and for abandonment of simplistic stereotypic positioning through encounters with cultural Others—encounters that become unavoidable for the members of the host society as they struggle to “live together” with anonymous, unchosen, and unfamiliar neighbors. In addressing real-life manifestations of both the ideal and the slogan of “multicultural co-existence” of the Japanese government and stakeholders, contributors to this book responded to the concept of “cohabitation,” which Judith Butler introduces as a form of “ethical obligation” for us to live with the Other by all possible means (2012, 2015). Building upon Hannah Arendt’s insights on the precarious lives of Jews, Butler affirms that living with others is not a matter of choice, but in so far as we respect the equal value of lives, an obligation (2015: 122).

This panel takes the opportunity to further deepen theoretical understanding of Butler’s notion of “cohabitation” by examining musicking activities of Filipino and Indian migrant groups in Japan in comparison with counterparts in the U.K. and elsewhere, against the backdrop of colonial history.

 

Video message by Hugh de Ferranti: “Music Communities of Ethnic and Cultural Minorities in and from Japan”

At the beginning of this panel, Hugh De Ferranti, the primary editor of the book Unsilent Strangers, offers an introductory video message, followed by excerpts of a fieldwork footage compilation DVD which features musical activities of migrant communities in the Tokyo region in the 2010s; namely among South Indians, Brazilians, Filipinos, Nepalese, and people of the Ogasawara (Bonin) Islands.

 

Michiyo Yoneno-Reyes

Our Version of Coexistence: Filipino Migrants’ Musicking and Migrant Singers in Japan and the World

Filipinos in Japan, the third largest foreign community among those with permanent and long-term visa status, have held a nationwide singing contest called Utawit since 2005, with about ten regional rounds and a national grand championship each year. Its conception is rooted in the presence of thousands of female mid-skilled entertainers in Japan since the 1980s. The ethnographic account of their management of the contest, a relatively large-scale event, implies their version of coexistence with the host community members in Japan – they hardly need the intervention of public or civic Japanese sympathizers while strategically making use of the public community facilities local government units provide for their residents. It suggests their integration into the local community to a certain degree. By accommodating Japanese participants and Japanese songs in the contest, the Utawit organizers exercise agency independently of the so-called multicultural coexistence initiatives of Japanese bureaucratic gatekeepers, as well as local community and NGO groups – this is where cohabitation in Butler’s sense is in evidence.

This study responds to historical accounts of musicianship in Western music and overseas work by Filipinos since as early as the 18^th century, as a result of experiences of colonialism, as well as contemporary fieldwork-based studies that depict the significance of karaoke singing in identity formation among Filipino diasporas in the U.K. and elsewhere. The research suggests a condition of rather flexible or “loose” integration of migrants in host societies.

 

Takako Inoue

Musical Activities among Cosmopolitan Indians: Case Studies on Asian Underground and Tyagaraja Aradhana

India has the highest number of immigrants in the world, with a rapid increase since the 1990s, after the Indian government began to promote and support the economic activities of the Indian diaspora through the implementation of economic liberalization policies in 1991. The history of mass emigration of Indians as plantation laborers is traced back to the 19^th century during British colonial rule. Most of them were not able to return to India and became permanent residents in the places they migrated to. By comparison, new emigrants since the 1990s have mostly been sojourners prepared to move on to other countries, especially English-speaking countries. Both settlers and sojourners share some cosmopolitan characteristics today, while maintaining their own ethnic practices.

This paper examines two contrasting musical phenomena as case studies. One is the Asian Underground, a hybrid of hip-hop, EDM, and traditional South Asian music created primarily by English-speaking South Asians, which includes bhangra (Punjabi pop music developed in the UK) and folk-hop (bhangra with hip-hop and EDM influences). The other is Tyagaraja Aradhana, a memorial to Tyagaraja (1767–1847), the sacred composer of traditional Carnatic music, which has developed into a week-long music festival held in Tiruvaiyaru, Tamil Nadu. Today, the festival has become globalized and is celebrated wherever South Indians live. Music of the Asian Underground has been developed mainly by second and third generation immigrants, while music of Tyagaraja Aradhana has been enjoyed not only by settlers but also by sojourners. Today, South Indians living in Tokyo are mostly new immigrant sojourners. They have not created their own distinctive style of hybrid music comparable to the style of Asian Underground yet, but they do hold Tyagaraja Aradhana every year. On the other hand, in London, where both settlers and sojourners live, both are practiced. Through a close examination of these two cases, I explore the meanings of musical cosmopolitanism, syncretism, and a sense of belonging, as well as prospects for “cohabitation without precarity”.