Weekly Discussion
How might paying attention to sound/soundscapes help us think about all of the ways that capitalism destroys our relationships to each other, as well as about how people continue to form new relationships with each other? Think about this question by engaging Goffe’s concept of extra-coloniality.
Extra-coloniality means that the colonist goes to a foreign country and acquire wealth in the colonies by oppressing local people. And a very important cause of this concept would be capitalism. The capitalism allows small group of people to acquire large amount of social wealth throw the accumulation of wealth. This unequal distribution of wealth resulting from capitalism creates hierarchies in the society. This inequality of social status eventually would cause tensions and thus destroys the relationship to each other. For example, Chinese arrives in Jamaica, and profit on soundscapes industry. The reason why Chinese people are doing so is because they want to accumulate wealth and become rich people (a higher status). Many local people in Jamaica believes that this industry is unfair. This suspicion resulted from capitalism greatly hurt the relationship between Chinese people and Jamaica people, which is a good case of how capitalism hurts relationships. However, capitalism could also improve the relationship. As I said, Chinese people engages in the soundscape business because of the capitalism. This action also tiggered the interaction of culture between Chinese and Jamaicans through music. The capitalism allows people from different groups to know more about each other and started a new relationship from different groups of people.
How can you use the concept of settler colonialism to construct a new map of East Asia that links the histories of Hawaii and China to US and Japanese imperialism? What happens when you add the Caribbean and British imperialism to the mix (think back to Goffe)?
The settler colonialism means that colonist settle down in the colony and start to replace indigenous people and local culture by themselves and their culture. Political action and physical violence might be used during the process. Through this action, the colonist could also gain a superior position compared to native people. US and Japanese and British are colonist in this conversation. Driven by capitalism, they are interested in the resource and potential benefit they can gain in colony. They settle down at these colonies and start to depress the indigenous through capitalism — commercialization. For example, US settlers goes to Hawaii and start plantation. US colonist oppressed the local workers and was able to gain a lot of wealth. The plantation makes the leader and wealthy class in Hawaii. Also, going back to last question, this is also an example of how capitalism hurts the relationship between groups of people.
