Sound and nonviolence : music as political action in Hong Kong

Abstract

Music in protest is an inherently contextual phenomenon that amalgamates with urban sound and other occurrences in the demonstration space. It takes on completely divergent roles to those it has in everyday use. To make sense of musical sound in protests as meaningful political experience we must posit the idea of music as performance, an event shaped by particular situations and social actors. In the annual June 4 Commemorative Candlelight Vigil in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park, the role of music is shaped by the ritualised setting and practices at the protest site. Participants make sense of music as ritual in the vigil. They attain a social legitimacy, reaffirming their identity as a member of the pro-democratic community in Hong Kong through participating in sonic events and performing collective bodily actions in the sacred vigil space. The Umbrella Movement (or “Occupy Central with Love and Peace”), another massive local nonviolent protest that took place in the second half of 2014, appeared with rather different, spontaneous and organic music and practices. The movement had a unique context and presented idiosyncratic human relations and events on the occupied streets in various districts. The Occupy gave music a profoundly distinct role, and sometimes music functioned as a form of political act or as a nonviolent weapon in particular situations during the protest, changing power relations and easing tension in the occupied space. The research for this thesis was conducted via a range of ethnographic methods, including field-recordings, interviews, questionnaires and personal participation in the protests. An interdisciplinary approach is used to examine the results of these materials, drawing from insights in sound studies, ethnomusicology, critical theory and the philosophy of language to reveal the changing role of music in local protests and to shed some light on the relationship between sound and nonviolence in political demonstrations in Hong Kong. This serves the two key purposes of this research: First, to respond to Adornian criticisms of music in protests; and second, to fill a prodigious research gap regarding the significant influence of musical culture in shaping Hong Kong’s distinctive political and social landscape.