Paper short abstract:

This paper shares samples from longitudinal ethnographic research concerning global Hiphop movements that engage certain aspects of anti-racial and anti-racialization political projects.

Paper long abstract:

This paper shares samples from longitudinal ethnographic research concerning global Hiphop movements that engage certain aspects of anti-racial and anti-racialization political projects. Hiphop is often cited as providing voice and visibility for expression and concerns of marginalized and oppressed community identities worldwide. Countless examples of Hiphop utilized as a transnational social movement in variant and diverse global spaces exist. Such evidence abounds in ranging literatures, from ethnographic monographs to popular journalism and cultural criticism. In the four decades that Hiphop has entered international popular imaginaries and media, a significant proportion of its focus has embraced Hiphop in trans-Pacific spaces as part of a transnational articulation against "global apartheid" (cf., Harrison 2002). Hiphop ethnographers and artists have documented diverse and historic "invisible" communities that have bore the brunt of unequal social policy, stigma and other forms of discrimination. Examples include festivals celebrating African-descent communities in Pacific Coastal regions of Colombia as well as partnerships through protest art among Okinawan, Korean and mixed-race Japanese nationals. From the Pacific Islands to the deep inlands of Uyghurstan (Xinjiang), Hiphop has been and continues to provide voice and visibility to those disidentifying with dominant culture and "national character" of assumed homogeneous societies. This paper demonstrates how Hiphop facilitates heterogeneity within and against status quo identifications.