A view from the frontier: Music and dance of the Ogasawara Islands
In this IIAS Lunch Lecture Masaya Shishikura presents an alternative way of seeing area, place, nation, and people.
This lecture by Masaya Shishikura presents an alternative way of seeing area, place, nation, and people. Through a case study of the Ogasawara Islands, Japan, it explores connections or “bonds” between human beings beyond various boundaries.
In the conventional view, we tend to see a place or people with a single attribute of nationality or ethnicity. However, the case of the Ogasawara Islands exemplifies that people often live within a plurality of histories and cultures rather than in a monolithic identity. In this view, the frontier is not a border or boundary of a nation-state. The frontier rather preserves its own dynamic locus beyond the nation-state, and expands to many other places and peoples. In presenting the view from the frontier, Shishikura finds significant utility of music studies. As a shared human activity, music often appeals to peoples of different ethnicities living in different places, and transcends various boundaries that are often defined by ethnicity, religion, and the nation. A variety of musical activities demonstrates Ogasawara’s extensive bonds with many places and peoples that transcend various “imagined” barriers. The case study of Ogasawara musical culture proposes a new vision to see a place and people in plurality that guides us to the future of continually shifting world.
Masaya Shishikura is an affiliated fellow at IIAS.
Registration is required
Lunch is provided by IIAS. Please register for this lunch lecture using the form below.
About IIAS Lunch Lectures
Every month, one of the IIAS researchers will present his or her work-in-progress in an informal setting to colleagues and other interested attendees. IIAS organises these lunch lectures to give the research community the opportunity to freely discuss ongoing research and exchange thoughts and ideas.