the world of music (new series) 15 (1), 2026 now online

This issue encompasses key decolonial writings on music and East Asia. Examining forms of cultural, epistemic, exploitation, settler, and internal coloniality, the issue demonstrates the necessity of grounding decolonial analysis in the historical particularities and discourses of specific geographies. There are two main areas of concern: (1) Exploitation and cultural colonization that is linked to Euro-North American imperialism and the influx of Western musics (hymns, military band music, pop, rock etc.) into East Asia in part via Japan, Japanese colonization in East Asia in the interwar years, as well as Chinese imperialism over millennia. (2) Minoritization that is linked to settler and internal colonization (e.g. Xinjiang) as well as marginalization of diasporic peoples and musics from East Asia who migrated around the world.

–Barbara Titus