Sounding Out Japan: A Sensory Ethnographic Tour (Sensory Studies)

by Tamara Kohn (Author), Carolyn S. Stevens (Author), Richard Chenhall (Author)

• New

  Hardcover
  2020

  $139.62

  This volume investigates the foundational role sound plays in the formation of the sometimes new and fragile social realities that can be found in Japan. Witnessing earthquakes and tsunamis, political corruption and tensions coupled with rising nationalism, contemporary Japan is a society in flux, seeking stability. Through their accounts of researching sound in a diverse range of spaces such as train stations, temples, therapeutic communities and martial art halls, Chenhall, Kohn and Stevens present insights into the complex relationships that connect sounds, other senses, space, informants and researchers. The authors identify that one of the rarely explored aspects of social transformation are the complementary sounds of change and continuity - the enduring, meaning-rich sounds and vibrations that fill ears, produce feelings, and create or sustain memories. They explore how sound and stillness may be understood as reflections of both change and diversity as well as continuity and stasis in a range of different environments in Japan, enabling the reader to enter into a imagined sensorium of sound and space, as described in textual form. Using a reflective approach, the authors present a narrative on the sonic conditions of late modernity in Japan and on collaborative sensory ethnographic research more generally.