Book Review: Transnational Musicians. Precariousness, Ethnicity and Gender in the Creative Industry

Casula, Clementina

doi:10.1177/17499755221149125

Cited by 1 publication

(2 citation statements)

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“…The material presented in this article is derived from a larger doctoral research project, exploring the (trans)national career trajectories of Japanese musicians in Japan, France, and Poland (see Kowalczyk, 2021). I compared the professional trajectories of Japanese musicians in these three different socio-cultural and politico-economic contexts in order to mitigate the influence that the idiosyncrasies of a particular environment might have on how individuals deal with the racializing discourse in classical music.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The academic literature is replete with examples of classical musicians of Asian origin being depicted as "automatons and robots without souls" in the United States (Wang, 2014;Yang, 2007, p. 14). Racial prejudices similarly undergird this disparaging assessment of Asian 2 musicians in Europe (Kawabata, 2023;Kowalczyk, 2021;Scharff, 2018). Leppänen (2015, p. 23) shows that the media coverage of the 1995 International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition presented participants from Asia as disconnected from European music traditions and thus "homogeneous, impersonal, non-charismatic, superficial, technical players."…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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“…in Japan, we are just imitating the ‘real’ thing…”. (Re)doing racialized authentic self in classical music

Kowalczyk

2023

Gender Work & Organization

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Scholars exploring the entwinement of "authenticity" and "race" in cultural production demonstrate that artists are frequently evaluated according to racialized standards, whereby differences in musical expression are believed not only to be the result of cultural differences but to be rooted in ethnic and racial differences in the popular imagination.Heretofore, the research has focused either on evidencing that authenticity is entirely a social construct or on tracing racially informed discriminatory practices against artists of color. Exponents of an artform traditionally associated with a racial group other than their own are frequently deemed "inauthentic." However, less attention has been devoted to investigating whether, and if so how artists resist, or otherwise deal with, this racialized construction of authenticity. This article contributes to the literature on authenticity, race, and identity in creative work by examining the ways in which artists navigate racialized representations of authenticity in Western art music. The analysis is informed by qualitative research conducted among 75 Japanese musicians in France, Poland, and Japan. It draws on performative theories to conceptualize both authenticity and race as something that people "do" and "redo," rather than "have" or "are." My findings demonstrate that Japanese artists are doing authentic music self through race by self-aligning with a Western personality, a Western sense of music, and by training their bodies to fit Western instruments. The various means available to an artist to resist racialized preconceptions and

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%