Periodic Reporting for period 2 - CEJaMS (Choreographing Emigration: Japanese Tango Musicians in Shanghai, 1920-1945)
Reporting period: 2021-09-01 to 2022-08-31
Between 1920 and 1945, many Japanese tango musicians migrated to work at the Shanghai and Manchurian dance halls in Japan-occupied China. The cosmopolitan cities of Shanghai and Manchuria were considered by Japanese musicians as a musically ‘authentic’ place to work and to polish skills as musicians. This was seen as a great contrast to Japan at this time, where much of the ‘foreign’ popular musical knowledge was acquired through imitating recordings. Many Japanese musicians migrated to Shanghai and Manchuria to ‘learn through working at the dance halls’, some of them with entire families: they called these places ‘the cities where one could make a fortune at a single stroke.’ Influenced by Japanese colonial imaginaries of China, Japan’s fascination for Shanghai and Manchuria has been discussed not only as an economically and artistically driven admiration, but as a form of Orientalism. This project, however, clarifies that the Japanese fascination for Shanghai and Manchuria at this time had much wider historical meanings. Key contexts here are Japan’s fascination for the ‘continents’, South America and China, and the mass Japanese immigration to South America that peaked between 1920 and 1945, promoted by the Japanese government’s pro-emigration campaigns. Though Japanese immigration to South America began in the late nineteenth century, this was in much smaller numbers compared 1920-1945. By examining Japanese tango musicians’ migration to Shanghai and Manchuria through this lens, this project examines the China-returnee Japanese tango musicians’ roles in creating Japanese people’s imaginations about ‘South America’, promoting further Japanese immigration to South America. In so doing, this project reveals music’s central function in the political creation of the maritime continent/island dichotomy, and their idealised images that orchestrated the Japanese immigration to South America, 1920-1945. This project shows that historically, migration has not only enabled dissemination and mixing of musical genres, but that music has also been the very cause of migration. Tango is widely known as the music of immigrants, and my research activities also demonstrate this narrative’s relevance in the twentieth century Japanese migration history. Through public dissemination, I also address how issues of sexual and racial discrimination intersect with migration, cultivating wider public’s awareness of stereotypes in order to work toward abolishing racial and gender discrimination. Furthermore, through publications and public engagements for audiences outside academe, I shed new lights on the twentieth century Japan-China historical relations. Japanese popular musicologists, migration and gender studies specialists, Japanese and Latin American studies scholars have studied the political organisation of the Japanese fascination for South America, as well as China, using historical analyses and under the lens of modernity. In this project, I have used these methods in innovative ways to study the role of music in the orchestration of Japanese immigration to South America, 1920-1945.
I have undertaken fieldwork and archival work throughout the project, as well as oral historical research in 5 cities. During the project, I obtained 1 single-authored academic book contract for my book, titled Tango in Japan: Cosmopolitanism Beyond the West, currently in production with the University of Hawai'i Press for publication in 2024. I have published 2 journal articles, presented at 13 international conferences, organised 2 international conferences and 1 international workshop since the start of this project. I have given 7 invited talks in the United States, Europe and Argentina, 4 guest lectures in the United States and across Europe, 1 lecture demonstration in Japan, and 1 pre-concert talk in France. The new knowledge and outputs generated during the fellowship are and will continue to be widely disseminated to historical, musicological, anthropological, migration studies, Japanese studies, Latin American studies, and Chinese studies audiences. The project is opening new areas of research on the history of twentieth century human migration, music and migration, ethnographic studies on migration politics, Japanese musicians in Japan-occupied China, and the dynamics of Japanese immigration to Latin America. Research results are being used by the communities above as new ways to examine music, migration politics and belonging, and to open new line of enquiry into China-Japan-South America relations. Outputs have been and will continue to be created through publications in international peer-reviewed monographs, journals and conference presentations. The results have also been widely disseminated through conferences and workshops that I organised throughout the duration of this project, targeting the wide public, students, and academics.
The ability to critically integrate concepts of diversity and heterogeneity in the study of the increasingly complex dynamics of globalising world is an indispensable asset when seeking employment, fellowships, and publication contracts. The fellowship will continue to open up my employment opportunities in academic teaching and research in the fields of history, music studies, anthropology, Latin American and Japanese studies. Through the success of this research project, I have obtained the position of Lectureship (equiv. Assistant Professorship) in Music at SOAS University of London. The direct impact of my research outcomes has been as follows: 1) providing a new direction in research and wider understanding of the relationship between music and migration, 2) enriching knowledge of the early to mid-twentieth century Shanghai and Manchuria dance hall cultures, and 3) offering in-depth and new knowledge of Japan-China relations. Indirect impacts have included renewing and challenging public awareness of racial and musical stereotypes, to work toward abolishing racial and gender discrimination. My forthcoming book discussed above, Tango in Japan: Cosmopolitanism Beyond the West, targeted at scholars with specialisations listed above and wider audiences, accomplishes these impacts, by offering the first in-depth work on Japan-Argentina musical relations that provides insights into musical globalisation and migration that move away from any West-centered approached to understanding musical mobilities. Finally, the website has been updated regularly to disseminate research that has been undertaken throughout this project.