Cultural performance in the Okinawan urban soundscape: music, sound, tourism

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2578620

Abstract

Okinawa prefecture is an archipelago in southwestern Japan. This article examines the urban musical soundscape of Kokusai Street in Naha City, Okinawa’s capital, where tourism, identity and sonic performance intersect to create a dynamic acoustic space of local cultural representation. Drawing on the fields of sound studies, tourism, cultural geography, and ethnomusicology, this article investigates acoustic design through three representative musical sound worlds within Kokusai Street’s sonic touristic milieu. The first explores sound in motion, examining how the city’s various monorail’s chimes serve as auditory markers of Okinawa’s identity; the second considers the mediated and performed sounds of the commercial streetscape, where traditional music, contemporary consumer culture and urban sound converge for tourism consumption; and the third focuses on the vibrant live house entertainment scene, where performances of traditional and neo-traditional Okinawan music engage audiences in an interactive sonic experience that firmly positions Okinawa within the touristic gaze. The article highlights how this particular micro sound world in Okinawa’s urban soundscape functions as a performative space that constructs and communicates local musical identity within the broader framework of island tourism.

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