How Music and Musicians Communicate the Antinuclear Protest Message in Post-Fukushima Japan

FAIN: FO-50237-14

Noriko Manabe
Princeton University (Princeton, NJ 08540-5228)

The Fukushima nuclear crisis has inspired the largest citizens' movement in Japan since the 1960s. Based on fieldwork and musico-textual analyses, my monograph-in-progress examines how musicians are communicating the antinuclear message. Eyerman and Jamison have observed that social movements engage music from the past. I take this observation a step further by proposing a typology of intertextuality—a recurrent feature of Japanese antinuclear songs, which incorporate music from past movements and quote recent announcements. I examine the role of music in different venues—demonstrations, cyberspace, festivals, and recordings—and the evolution of sound demonstrations with the stage of the movement. I consider the range of roles taken by musicians, who see themselves as ordinary citizens rather than representatives of their fans (cf Street). Drawing from ethnography, musical analysis, sound studies, and literary theory, I consider how music communicates messages in contentious politics.

Associated Products

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Protest Music After Fukushima (Book)
Title: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Protest Music After Fukushima
Author: Noriko Manabe
Abstract: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Protest Music After Fukushima shows that music played a central role in expressing antinuclear sentiments and mobilizing political resistance in Japan. Combining musical analysis with ethnographic participation, author Noriko Manabe offers an innovative typology of the spaces central to the performance of protest music--cyberspace, demonstrations, festivals, and recordings. She argues that these four spaces encourage different modes of participation and methods of political messaging. The openness, mobile accessibility, and potential anonymity of cyberspace have allowed musicians to directly challenge the ethos of silence that permeated Japanese culture post-Fukushima. Moving from cyberspace to real space, Manabe shows how the performance and reception of music played at public demonstrations are shaped by the urban geographies of Japanese cities. While short on open public space, urban centers in Japan offer protesters a wide range of governmental and commercial spaces in which to demonstrate, with activist musicians tailoring their performances to the particular landscapes and soundscapes of each. Music festivals are a space apart from everyday life, encouraging musicians and audience members to freely engage in political expression through informative and immersive performances. Conversely, Japanese record companies and producers discourage major-label musicians from expressing political views in recordings, forcing antinuclear musicians to express dissent indirectly: through allegories, metaphors, and metonyms. The first book on Japan's antinuclear music, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised provides a compelling new perspective on the role of music in political movements.
Year: 2015
Primary URL: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-revolution-will-not-be-televised-9780199334698?cc=us&lang=en#
Primary URL Description: Publisher website
Secondary URL: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199334681.001.0001/acprof-9780199334681
Secondary URL Description: Oxford Scholarship Online website
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9780199334698
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

Prizes

John Whitney Hall Book Prize
Date: 3/17/2017
Organization: Association for Asian Studies
Abstract: For best book on Japan

Alan Merriam Prize (Honorable Mention)
Date: 11/12/2016
Organization: Society for Ethnomusicology
Abstract: For best book in ethnomusicology. Citation was as follows: Manabe’s book is a deeply informed study of music in relation to anti-nuclear protests in Japan since the devastating earthquake and nuclear disaster of 2011. The committee was in awe of the scope, depth, and risk-taking of the author’s research— at demonstrations and festivals, and with both indie and major label recordings musicians and producers; and in cyberspace. Her command of policy and its legal implications was as strong as her expert performance ethnography and music analysis. This study teaches us a great deal about the techniques of messaging, and the ways music breaks through the walls of official and unofficial censorship.

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