Conference Agenda

In the postwar era, enka was canonized as the “soul of Japan,” a cultural vessel projecting a unified national identity (Yano 2003). Yet this quintessential “Japaneseness” was itself a postwar construction that effaced broader Asian entanglements (Bourdaghs 2012; Shamoon 2014). This process aligned with what Dower (2009) terms “imperial democracy”—a project that sought to forge a democratic future by disavowing an imperial past. In this shift, former colonial subjects—most notably Zainichi (ethnic Koreans remaining in Japan)—were rendered socially and historically invisible.

I argue, however, that this "national purification" of enka exposed the inherent fragility of its claim to a homogeneous Japanese essence. A primary symptom of this fragility was the persistent circulation of rumors suggesting that certain iconic enka singers were "secretly Korean" (Wajima 2018). These rumors functioned as a form of sonic surveillance, where public discourse scrutinized vocal styles, birthplaces, and biographies to patrol the borders of Japaneseness.

The paradox, then, runs deep: if the Zainichi presence was meant to be relegated to the nation's margins, why did the "soul of Japan" become the very site where that presence repeatedly surfaced in the public imagination? Drawing on Gordon’s (2008) concept of haunting, I suggest that these recurring suspicions reveal the impossibility of severing a national sound from its imperial history. The voices mobilized to chant postwar unity were inextricably linked to the colonial circuits of labor that produced them, revealing enka not as a purified essence, but as a genre fundamentally structured by its imperial traces.

Two strikes of a temple bell announce the beginning of a chant, and the presiding priest begins to intone the first line of Shinran Shonin’s Shoshinge. Attendees and other priests join in the second line, filling the worship hall with a mix of voices. At other times the main worship hall resounds with worshippers reciting the name of Amida Buddha, namo amida butsu, as a response of gratitude after hearing a reading from a letter of Rennyo Shōnin or a particularly moving Dharma talk. These are some of the quotidian sounds of a Buddhist temple in the Jōdō Shinshū sect which, while ubiquitous in presence, may not engender commonality in meaning or interpretation. Following recent insights by Yun Emily Wang, this paper will consider the temple as a “site of multiple, competing interpellations” generated by the multiple levels of attendance and engagement, from priest to lay, tourist, or even researcher (2025). Based on fieldwork at Buddhist temples in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka, I argue that sounds and music heard generate new modes of being for participants through their meditative, participatory, and transformative potential for priests and lay. While sonic practice may be shared by all in attendance, the meanings, applications, and expectations of those sounds for each person are varied. Hearing the temple in this way, ethnomusicologists can further nuance the discussion of Japanese religious engagement int the twenty-first century, showing sound as fundamental to the persistance of religious teachings in Japan.

During the U.S. occupation of Okinawa (1945–1972), jazz musicians performed largely on American military bases, where musical labor was organized along racial and military hierarchies. These musicians mastered American swing and big band styles to meet the expectations of U.S. audiences, often suppressing local cultural expression in favor of sonic mimicry. Following the reversion of Okinawa to Japan in 1972 and the collapse of base entertainment, many musicians were forced out of professional performance, yet jazz persisted through informal sessions, small clubs, and intergenerational mentorship. This paper examines the historical transformation of jazz in Okinawa from a form of military entertainment under U.S. occupation to a locally rooted cultural practice known today as “Uchinā jazz.”

Drawing on oral history interviews with first- and later-generation Okinawan jazz musicians, archival research and ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Okinawa, I show how jazz has been continually reshaped by shifting political, economic, and cultural conditions on the islands since 1945. I argue that Okinawan jazz has undergone a process of sonic reclamation. Musicians increasingly integrate Ryukyuan folk melodies, indigenous scales, and themes of war memory and peace into jazz performance, reframing the genre as a medium of cultural belonging rather than imported entertainment. By situating Okinawan jazz within broader debates on cultural hybridity, globalization, and postcolonial musical exchange, this study complicates center-periphery models of jazz globalization. It demonstrates how a genre shaped by asymmetrical power relations can be reappropriated to articulate local histories, intergenerational memory, and Okinawan cultural identity in a global context.

This paper examines the collaborative development of "Harmony between Heaven and Earth (HHE)," a guqin-based wellness program created in partnership with the Tucson Chinese Cultural Center in Southern Arizona. Addressing gaps in cultural diversity within music-and-health research, the study asks how ethnomusicologically informed, community-based approaches can be used to design music and wellness programs that meaningfully serve diasporic communities. Based on weekly stakeholder meetings as well as interviews and ongoing conversations with community members and guqin practitioners, the research documents local perspectives on wellness-oriented approaches to music learning grounded in cultural philosophy and lived experience. Over the past three decades, scholarship in medical and applied ethnomusicology has demonstrated music’s role in health and healing as a culturally situated phenomenon, often through ethnographic, collaborative, and intervention-based studies. However, comparatively less attention has been given to diasporic communities, where health values and practices may be marginalized within North American systems. I argue that culturally grounded, participatory program design—rooted in ethnomusicological engagement with community values, histories, and musical traditions—is essential for promoting wellbeing in diasporic settings. Building on existing scholarship while addressing this gap, the paper proposes an integrative framework that bridges ethnomusicology and health promotion through the collaborative design of a guqin-based wellness program situated in a cultural center. By foregrounding non-clinical notions of wellbeing, community participation, and cultural sustainability, this study contributes to applied ethnomusicology by offering a model for collaborative research that expands the field’s role within interdisciplinary Arts in Health initiatives.