Neurodiversity in the Margins : A Semiotics of Care in Ōe’s Death By Water

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  • 周縁(マージンズ)とニューロダイバーシティ : 大江健三郎『水死』におけるケアの記号論

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This essay uses recent work in neurodiversity theory to read the Akari-figure in Ōe’s 2008 novel Death by Water. The novel stages a contest between artists on the left who oppose the 2006 revision of the Basic Law of Education, and high-ranking government officials on the right who enact and enforce it. The Akari-figure’s father is one of the artists on the left. His side seems to win the contest in a surprise ending that constructs what Pak Yu-ha has called an atarashii kyodotai replacing “right” and “left” with “a ‘valley in the forest’ free of the ideals of ‘state’ and ‘race.’” I argue that another way to escape endless pendular swings between far-right and farleft is to pay attention to the Akari-figure’s musical sensibility. In repeated riffs on the theme of “marginalia,” the father hints that his neurodiverse son is using classical music to engage reality in a way that does not require a foundational “cut” with the material world. Karatani Kōjin has called this cut a “hole” or “gap” and argued that if we try to fill it, we fall into fascism. However, in the novel’s marginal scenes of Akari relating to music, we see many of what neurodiversity theorist M. Remi Yergeau has called autism’s “inventional sites.” Yergeau defines these sites as forms of embodied communication that engage directly with the sensory world. They include autistic practices such as 1) perseveration, which is the routinization of obsessive and/or highly selective interests 2) echo-phenomena, which involve repeating words and sounds and 3) self-stimulation or “stimming.” By focusing on Akari’s “inventional sites,” the essay defines care-work in two ways. First is Akari’s self-care, which takes the form of composing music. Second is the relationship of care-giving that also requires invention and tentative forms of embodied semiosis.

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