Moving Spectacles: Madwomen and Human Trafficking in Noh's Peripheries.

This article examines the depiction of human trafficking and madness in medieval Japanese noh theater, focusing on plays such as *Sumida River* by Kanze Motomasa. It explores how noh dramatizes forced movement and family separation—especially the trafficking of children—and how these narratives intersect with the concept of *kurui* (狂い), a term encompassing madness, possession, and dance. The analysis highlights the gendered portrayal of madwomen, often mothers searching for abducted sons, whose stylized dances function as aestheticized acts of self-trafficking within a capital-centric spatial ideology that frames eastern Japan as a marginal and disorderly boundary region. The article situates these theatrical representations within the broader historical context of medieval Japan, where human trafficking was understood not through modern notions of individual rights but as socially embedded transactions involving bodily ownership, and argues that noh’s artistic refinement both reflects and reinforces cultural hierarchies tied to these dynamics. [Extracted from the article]