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The access to the contents of this doctoral thesis it is limited to the acceptance of the use conditions set by the following Creative Commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/?lang=en Creating Chilean Identities to the Rhythm of Japanese Rock: A Study of Santiago de Chile’s Visual Kei Fandom as Subculture Javiera Natalia Reyes Navarro A thesis submitted towards the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Doctorat de Traducció i Estudis Interculturals Departament de Traducció i d'Interpretació i d'Estudis de l'Àsia Oriental Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Directed by Dr. Jordi Mas López and Dr. Artur Lozano Méndez Abstract During the first decade of the new millennium, Chilean television, magazines, and newspapers turned their attention to groups of young people and their fashion styles, music tastes, and tendency to use public spaces as gathering spots. The ones of the capital, Santiago de Chile, were of the most interest due to their size and were categorized as urban tribes. Among them, one stood out due to its members' outrageous hairstyles, dark makeup and clothing, androgyny, and the language of the music to which they listened: visuals, the name given to Chilean fans of the Japanese music genre visual kei. Visual kei had reached Chilean audiences as a section of Japanese popular culture influx spearheaded by anime yet had evolved into its own niche scene that stood separate from both other music genre-based groups and from other associations formed around Japanese media. This research works with the notion that Santiago de Chile’s visuals constitute a subculture that follows patterns that had been set by a long tradition of Chilean youth cultures. In this development, visual kei serves as, on the one hand, an agglutinating factor and, on the other, as an element of the articulation of identities in relationship with Chilean society at large. These issues are explored through the application of the concept of “subculture” as developed by the University of Birmingham’s Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies and subsequent theorists. Supported by ethnographic research, it finds that Santiago’s visuals work as a subculture in terms of shared experiences, spaces, and the shifting boundaries that have developed throughout its history. Keywords: Chilean youth, Japanese popular music, subcultures, visual kei Dedication This doctoral thesis is dedicated to my father Juan, my mother Verónica, and my sister Catalina. I owe this work and much more to their constant love and to their support of my unconventional ideas, to which they have always been able to add a dash of realism. Acknowledgements I would first like to express my gratitude to my thesis advisors Dr. Jordi Mas López and Dr. Artur Lozano Méndez. This was only possible because they had faith in this idea and helped turn it into a viable project, and I am grateful for their thoughtful guidance and patience through three years of research and writing. I am also thankful to Dr. Tomoko Tatsumi, who acted as my tutor and academic advisor during my stay at Kobe University, and to Dr. Kaoru Aoyama, whose Advanced Seminar in Gender and Society class allowed me to further develop ideas related to the current project. I have been fortunate to have the support of mentors who have been in my life for many years. I want to thank Dr. Amy Holmes-Tagchungdarpa and Dr. Kalzang Dorjee Bhutia, with whom I had the privilege of working during my undergraduate studies; thank you for trusting my abilities even when I did not. I am also grateful to my MA thesis advisor Dr. Wesley Sasaki- Uemura, who was my mentor during the program and beyond; to Dr. Mamiko Suzuki, who is largely responsible for my interest in visual kei turning into a research focus; and to Dr. Patrick Galbraith, for introducing me to the available literature on visual kei and for his always affable disposition and encouragement. I am indebted to everyone from the visual kei scene of Santiago who participated in this research. While omitting names, I wish to thank all of you for opening your hearts, and sometimes homes, to me and making this possible, and especially the organizers of parties who were extremely kind to allow me into their activities and friend groups. Additionally, I want to thank everyone who has read or revised parts of this work out of the generosity of their hearts, particularly my friend CV, for her reassurance and belief in my research abilities before I even thought of continuing my graduate studies; Ignacio, whose help with linguistics and semiotics has been indispensable; and my partner Heejin, who has stood by me and provided me with her patience and insightful input in this process. Last, but not least, I wish to thank the Chilean National Research and Development Agency, ANID (formerly CONICYT), and its BECAS Chile scholarship program, through which I was able to dedicate myself full-time to the doctoral program and my research. Table of Contents Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... i Chapter 1: Approaching visual kei through cultural studies ........................................................... 1 1.1 Literature review ................................................................................................................... 1 1.1.1 Cultural, subcultural, and music scenes studies ............................................................. 1 1.1.2 Visual kei in Japan .......................................................................................................... 5 1.1.3 Japanese popular culture abroad ................................................................................... 15 1.1.4 Visual kei and subcultures in Chile .............................................................................. 17 1.2 Conceptual considerations................................................................................................... 26 1.2.1 Music genres and identity ............................................................................................. 26 1.2.2 Subcultures, (urban) tribes, and scenes ........................................................................ 28 Chapter 2: Overview of visual kei as a music genre ..................................................................... 37 2.1 Visual kei in Japan .............................................................................................................. 37 2.1.1 Situating visual kei ....................................................................................................... 37 2.1.2 Elements of visual kei: genre and scene ....................................................................... 39 2.1.3 History of visual kei in Japan ....................................................................................... 43 2.1.4 The visual kei industry ................................................................................................. 47 2.1.5 The Japanese visual kei fanbase ................................................................................... 51 2.2 The expansion and promotion of visual kei in the foreign market...................................... 53 2.2.1 Visual kei as a cultural export ...................................................................................... 53 2.2.2 The anime connection ................................................................................................... 60 Chapter 3: Setting the scene .......................................................................................................... 63 3.1 Youth cultures in Chile ....................................................................................................... 63 3.2 A brief history of the development of visual kei in Chile ................................................... 73 Chapter 4: The creation of a local subculture ............................................................................... 88 4.1. Visual kei as a Japanese product in Chile ......................................................................... 88 4.1.1 Situating "Japan" in the visuals’ imagination ............................................................... 88 4.1.2 Bridging the gap between countries ............................................................................. 98 4.1.3 Consumption of music in a foreign language ............................................................. 102 4.2 Visual as a Chilean subculture .......................................................................................... 108 4.2.1 Local forms of socialization ....................................................................................... 108 4.2.2 Visual kei subculture's potential as a space for exploration ....................................... 115 Chapter 5: The subcultural body as a space of expression and resistance .................................. 118 5.1 Style and fashion as disruption ......................................................................................... 118 5.2 Visual kei style