Intimate Distance engages with a seemingly unusual cultural interaction: Bolivian and Japanese performances of the indigenous music of Bolivia, framed as ‘Andean’ music. Michelle Bigenho approaches this topic as an anthropologist-cum-musicologist with an initial training in Latin American studies. This ethnographic book explores the ways Bolivian musicians enact ‘Andeanness’ in Japan and how Japanese enthusiasts engage with the music both in Japan and Bolivia. In focusing on this topic the author moves beyond more common approaches to transnational musical expressions such as exoticism, commodification, appropriation and tourism. Bigenho instead looks into the ‘motivating factors of transcultural affect, the material effects of transnational cultural labor, and the racialised narratives of culture that reveal both new and old perspectives on questions of nationalism and transnationalism’ (p. 3).
Through the introductory chapter Bigenho carefully positions Bolivian–Japanese cultural exchange in a complex postcolonial context. She asserts that both countries have their own colonial histories (as colonised and coloniser, respectively), but that there is no direct link between them (p. 9). The evidently unequal power relations are brought to the fore, as the presence of Japanese music enthusiasts in Bolivia is at times referred to as ‘a friendly invasion’ (p. 12) of ‘international development’ volunteers who engage with Bolivian cultural life. At the same time, the precarious working conditions of Bolivians touring in Japan are discussed – highlighting that these tours are rather lucrative in comparison to work in Bolivia, but that the financial gain does not always make up for the professional and cultural concessions that have to be made.
The intra-national meaning of the music also seems to be of considerable importance. Bigenho distinguishes two disparate ways indigenous music has cultural and political meaning in the Bolivian (pluri-)national project. Indeginismo, on the one hand, involves ‘mestizos staging representations of indigenous worlds’ (p. 45). Indigenous voice, on the other hand, linked to contemporary social movements in the light of Evo Morales' election in 2005 (he is the first indigenous president of the country) and the hope this brought for a fairer and more equitable position grounded in the cultures of indigenous groups. While it seems the former takes the upper hand in the volatile international music market (p. 59), Bigenho tries to unpack the contradictory role played by the staged performance of cultural difference in the national and transnational context.
Bigenho argues that ‘Andean’ music is often seen as ‘the Chinese food of ethnic music’ (pp. 60ff; a claim that doubles as the subtitle of the third chapter) in the sense that its omnipresence and easily digestible nature (particularly in streets and metro stations of global metropolises) considerably devalues the cultural and artistic appreciation of this music. As such, stereotypical representations most often replace radical politics. Any possible cultural and political devaluation notwithstanding, this music occupies a relatively strong position in the globalised, yet multi-polar (cultural) economy. The representation of Bolivian culture (albeit often dubbed ‘Andean’) provides international visibility for the country and its cultures. For, indeed, Bolivia is a multicultural country – yet Bigenho does not often mention the explicit plurinational politics, even though they are widely visualised by the wippala, a multi-coloured flag made up of many coloured squares, which she does refer to as the indigenous flag (p. 160). Bolivian musicians invest ample time, energy and money in keeping musical practices alive and representing and enacting the cultures in which the music is embedded around the world.
While discussing the oftentimes taxing working conditions in the ‘culture mines’ (e.g. pp. 89ff), Bigenho stresses the agency of the Bolivian musicians involved. (The mines draw an implicit parallel to the colonial exploitation of silver in Potosí.) At the same time, she discusses in considerable depth how a ‘micro-niche’ in Japan is actively consuming and co-creating Bolivian music. A small group of Japanese literally play an active role in the music scene at varying levels of quality and engagement (p. 97). The rationale for involvement in musical (re)production differs significantly: ‘if mestizo [non-indigenous] musicians might be seen as playing Indian in the name of a Bolivian national project, the Japanese might be seen as playing Indian as they long for a traditional utopia perceived to be lost within modern life’ (p. 95). Bolivian music thus functions as a reaction both to US cultural influence and imperialism, and to the embracing of Western classical music which was part of the modernisation of Japanese society throughout the 20th century. Given the strong active engagement within this (admittedly very small) musical niche in Japan, Bigenho contends that the Japanese engagement extends beyond ‘ordinary market circulation’ and a ‘tourist gaze’ (p. 120).
The importance of the highly complex racial and prehistoric imagined indigenous link between Japan and Bolivia is addressed throughout the book. Chapter 5 specifically focuses on this in greater detail. Bigenho discusses the pre- and postcolonial histories of both countries in detail. For example, throughout the discussion it is indicated that the ways the Japanese and Bolivians construct and understand the links between them are vastly different. The Bolivians experience the link as politicised in that they both live alternate modernities, explicitly questioning and resisting US imperial hegemony (be it, however, from different vantage points). The Japanese, in contrast, seem to experience the racial/ethnic link on a more abstract level. Through the ‘Andean’ music, a mental journey (often in combination with a physical sojourn in Bolivia) evokes an intimate relationship because of the perceived similarity of the pre-modern indigenous connection. In focusing on this mental intimacy, the Japanese remain remarkably silent about the strong presence of (radical) indigenous social movements in Bolivia (p. 145). In contrast to the detailed historical discussion of the respective colonial histories, the subsequent convergence of these histories could do with some more deliberation. To me, it remains unclear whether insufficient attention has been paid to that link, or because a detailed ethnography of ‘transnational cultural flows’ (p. 167) generates more curiosity than one monograph can possibly cover.
Overall, the focus of the book may be quite narrow, but this allows for a detailed exploration and understanding of the fascinating transnational and transborder (p. 171) cultural movement between Bolivia and Japan. The clear self-reflexivity in the closing chapter (‘Gringa in Japan’) provides not only a great understanding of the practical complexities of transcultural multi-sited fieldwork that transgresses more vested ‘area-studies’ approaches (pp. 149ff), but also points at the utter difficulty of constantly questioning one's own position and politics in joining the intimate journeys through cultural difference (pp. 151ff). The book provides a much-needed insight into one of the many complex and imbalanced instances of cultural exchange.
