“Keeping pure hearts”: identity, reminiscence, and resistance in okinawan popular music
Citation
Harvey, Sandi K .(2007). “Keeping pure hearts”: identity, reminiscence, and resistance in okinawan popular music. In Proceedings : 3rd Annual Symposium : Graduate Research and Scholarly Projects. Wichita, KS : Wichita State University, p.151-152
Abstract
Since the early 1990s, Okinawans have creating music, which mixes traditional min yo’ (folk songs) and shima uta
(Island songs) with jazz, reggae, folk, and other Western musical elements. The mixing of traditional and Western musical
elements is referred to as “hybridization” or champuru. Okinawan popular music, also known as Uchinaa Pop, is unique in that it
uses Okinawan indigenous language and traditional instrument, sanshin. It will also be necessary to analyze the lyrical content,
in which certain themes are embedded with Okinawa’s cultural values and worldview.
I will analyze Okinawan popular music as a symbolic construct to define such concepts as identity, reminiscence, and
resistance as it is locally situated within the context of the historical and political framework. These concepts are not mutually
exclusive; rather they are interconnected in meaning and purpose when it comes to interpreting and explaining Uchinaa Pop.
This is a preliminary study, in which I will be conducting fieldwork in Okinawa, Japan in the summer of 2007.
Description
Paper presented to the 3rd Annual Symposium on Graduate Research and Scholarly Projects (GRASP) held at the Hughes Metropolitan Complex, Wichita State University, April 27, 2007.
Research completed at the Department of Anthropology, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences