Tuesday 7 April 2026, 4.00-6.00pm (BST)
This is an online event. Register for the Zoom here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_SQ38aYNZStiWN28Czjw0Zw#/registration
Between Notes:
sound, self, and the unfolding present in the careers of Tokyo’s independent musicians
Speaker:
Robert Simpkins, social anthropologist and musician, Oxford
Invited Discussant:
Christine Guillebaud, anthropologist, CNRS LESC-CREM
Abstract:
This talk explores the working lives of independent musicians in Tokyo who navigate artistic careers outside of formalised institutional structures – neither embedded in the music industry nor integrated into Japan’s canonical employment system. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork, Robert’s research considers how these musicians negotiate recognition, legitimacy and self-worth in the absence of conventional scripts. The practices of his interlocutors often reflect ambivalent forms of moral positioning and aspiration and contain moments of tension and creativity that speak to how artistic careers are sustained in the gaps between legitimacy and marginality, and between hope and cynicism. Increasingly, his research also asks what role sound itself – not merely as representational layer, but as generative medium – might play in shaping the narrative processes through which these artists make sense of their lives.
Biographical note:
Robert Simpkins is a social anthropologist interested in how we engage with the world through creative practices. His passion for music and sound shapes his research on performance and the relational life of sound in public space. His ethnographic work, conducted primarily in Tokyo, explores sound and self, the dynamics of urban space, and the role of the body, gender, affect and wellbeing. He co-founded the Sound Loss Collective and co-produces Artery, an AHRC-supported podcast on art, authorship, and anthropology. He is currently developing new projects on sound as method, including a short film about unhoused music.
Christine Guillebaud, an anthropologist and an ethnomusicologist, is a Research Fellow at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), and former Director of the Centre for Research in Ethnomusicology (CREM-LESC) located at the University of Paris-Nanterre. She also teaches in the Department of Musicology at the University of Geneva. Her academic interests include anthropology of sound, the study of urban ambiances, and the ethnography of local noise management politics in India, where she has conducted long-term fieldwork. She is currently leading the MILSON research program (milson.fr), dedicated to the study of sound environments in their sociocultural context of production and perception. She has edited the book Toward an Anthropology of Ambient Sound (Routledge, 2017), co-edited Worship Sound Spaces. Architecture, Acoustics and Anthropology (Routledge, 2020), and Singing the Past (Nanterre University Press, 2023). Previously, she published numerous volumes and articles on musical creation, multimodality, danced knowledges, cultural policies, sound humor and intellectual property. She has also coproduced sound creations for radio, including the series Écouter le monde (Radio France Internationale).
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Artistry@Work is an online Seminar Series in the Anthropology of Artists & Artisans, running 2024–2026
Maison des Sciences de l’Homme–Université Clermont Auvergne, in collaboration with the Royal Anthropological Institute
Organisers: Dr Raphaël Blanchier & Professor Trevor Marchand
This seminar series in anthropology explores the situated practices of ‘artistry at work’ and, more broadly, the working lives and career trajectories of artists and artisans plying their trades in regions around the globe. The scope of the series also encompasses studies of occupations not conventionally categorised as “artistic” but that nevertheless foster creativity among (some) practitioners and even accommodate the development of “artist” identities.
Find all events in the series here: https://therai.org.uk/series/artistrywork/
