Relay Column: The "Dancing Sociologist" Born Between "Straight-Laced" & "Delinquent" (Akihiro Arikuni)

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PROFILE

Akihiro Arikuni

Graduate School of Letters, Osaka City University, Postgraduate Doctoral Program / Part-time Lecturer at Various Universities. Specializes in sociology and cultural studies. Major works include "学校で踊る若者は『不良』か？−ストリートダンスはどのようにして学校文化に定着したか" in "新社会学研究" No. 5 (Shinyosha, 2021), "スニーカーにふれる" in "ふれる社会学" (2019), "メディアをまとい闘うBガール" in "ガールズ・メディア・スタディーズ" (2021) (both published by Hokuju Shuppan), and "ストリートファッション" in "クリティカル・ワードファッションスタディーズ" (2022, Film Art) among others.

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I am a researcher studying street dance from the perspective of sociology. I began street dancing in college, and as my knowledge of street dance culture, along with the inseparable hip-hop culture, deepened, I also began to understand the cultural background of hip-hop, which originated in the slums of New York, USA.

Hip-hop（1） is deeply related to issues such as racism, poverty caused by unemployment, and crime and drug problems arising from gang control of the area, which ethnic minorities living there confront. It was used as a means of resistance against such difficult circumstances through the power of art such as music and dance. I became increasingly immersed in this extremely complex and fascinating culture that contains both its "delinquent" and anti-social aspects and its social movement aspect.

As I experienced while engaging in street dance myself, young people involved in street dance often occupy streets and urban spaces, dancing while making noise at night, which may lead some to perceive their activities as troublesome and label them as "delinquents."

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