This open access book examines how auditory environments in different contexts have contributed to understanding foreign occupation and colonialism, and how they have given rise to historical music cultures. How are sound and music implicated in the control and discipline of people under occupation? Exploring case studies of foreign occupation and colonialism from around the world, Sonic Histories of Occupation seeks to answer these questions and more. Examining how an emphasis on auditory culture adds complexity and nuance to understanding the relationship between occupation and the bodily senses, this book is structured around three conceptual themes: voice and occupation; memory, sound and occupation; and auditory responses to occupation and colonialism. Highlighting case studies in Asia, North Africa, North America and Europe, contributors employ a range of theoretical approaches to examine histories of imperialism and foreign occupation, and the auditory legacies they created, and contribute to a wider dialogue about the relationship between sound and imperial projects across political and temporal boundaries. The open access edition of this book is available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the European Research Council (Horizon 2020, Grant Number 682081).
List of Figures List of Contributors Acknowledgements ‘Introduction: Sonic Histories of Occupation’ Russell P. Skelchy and Jeremy E. Taylor Part I: Voice and Occupation Introduction: ‘Voice and Occupation’ Jeremy E. Taylor 1. ‘The Vocal Apparatus’s Colonial Contexts: France’s Mission Civilisatrice and (Settler) Colonialism in Algeria and North America’, Iris Blake 2. ‘The Hush Arbour As Sanctuary: African American Survival Silence During British/American Slavery’, Maya Cunningham 3.‘Music and Sound in Weihsien Internment Camp in Japanese-occupied China’, Sophia Geng Part II Introduction: ‘Memory, Sound and Occupation’, Jeremy E. Taylor 4. ‘Occupying New Sound Worlds: Debordering Sonic Imaginaries in StoryMaps’, Fiona Magowan and Jim Donaghey, with Annette McNelis 5. ‘Loud Town, Quiet Base: Olongapo City, Subic Bay and the US Navy, 1950–70’, Kevin Sliwoski 6. ‘Registering Sonic Histories in a Multiply Occupied Place: Sound and Survivance in Mangota’ay, Taiwan’, DJ Hatfield Part III Introduction to Part Three: ‘Auditory Responses to Occupation and Colonialism’, Jeremy E. Taylor 7. ‘The Sonic Occupation of Central Asia: Sound Culture and the Railway in Chingiz Aitmatov’s The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years’, Dimitri Smirnov 8. ‘Auditory and Spatial Regimes of United States Colonial Rule in Baguio, Philippines’, Russell P. Skelchy 9. ‘Soundscapes of Diversity in the Port Cities of British Malaya: Cultural Convergences and Contestations in the Early Twentieth Century’, Tan Sooi Beng Index
Russell P. Skelchy is an ERC Research fellow at University of Nottingham, UK, where he leads the “Sounds of Occupation” stream in the COTCA Project. His recent publications have appeared in the Ethnomusicology, Journal of Popular Music Studies, Action, and the volume, Vamping the Stage: Female Voices of Asian Modernities (2017). Jeremy E. Taylor is Associate Professor of Modern Asian History at University of Nottingham, UK, and Director of the COTCA Project. His research has been published in numerous journals including, most recently, the Journal of Asian Studies. He is the author of Rethinking Transnational Chinese Cinemas (2011) and Iconographies of Occupation: Visual Cultures in Wang Jingwei's China (2021).
Reviews for Sonic Histories of Occupation: Experiencing Sound and Empire in a Global Context
Sonic Histories of Occupation is the first collection of essays decolonizing sound studies on a global scale. From now on, histories of the trauma, dispossession and destruction wrought by colonial and imperialist rule that do not consider sound will be considered insufficient. * Veit Erlmann, University of Texas at Austin, Editor, Sound Studies, USA * Sonic Histories of Occupation is important, useful, and above all, timely. It showcases the valuable work being done by scholars at the interdisciplinary nexus of musicology, ethnomusicology, sound studies, post-colonial studies, sub-altern studies, and history. * Alexandra Hui, Associate Professor of History, Mississippi State University, USA *
