Organizer: John W. Traphagan, University of Michigan
Chair: Scott Clark, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Discussant: J. Thomas Rimer, University of Pittsburgh
Presenters in this panel draw on ethnographic data and in-depth interviews to shed light on how contemporary Japanese use strategies of religious participation in the process of constructing social identities within the contexts of family and community. We suggest that religious practice forms an important framework of social support through which Japanese people construct gender and age related aspects of identity. Accordingly, this panel considers four aspects of religious practice in which age and gender are significant. First, E. Leslie Williams explores the effects of changing patterns of family organization on intergenerational experiences of religious activities, showing how mobility has de-emphasized the regional nature of shrine observances and changed the relationship people have to the kami. Second, Satsuki Kawano examines the role of gender in tending domestic altars and in neighborhood festivals. She suggests that genders play complementary roles in communal and familial rituals and these roles vary in relation to class, occupation, age, and marital status. Next, John W. Traphagan looks at the practice of visiting pokkuri-dera or "sudden death temples" by older Japanese; he argues that death and entrance into ancestorhood is viewed as preferable to the loss of social status associated with the onset of senility (boke). Finally, Brenda Robb Jenike considers the role participation in Soka Gakkai plays among providers of long-term care to the chronically ill, and discusses how these women’s "faith" forms a strategy for maintaining emotional strength and continuity.
E. Leslie Williams, Brigham Young University
Focused on the notion of kami entities, the Shinto worldview is a traditional cosmology which has experienced setbacks in Japan, especially since the end of World War II. Four main factors seem to have contributed to this waning influence of Shinto; all four appear to have contributed to an impairment of the intergenerational flow of knowledge regarding this particular cosmology. These factors are: (1) the changes in demographic patterns that are largely a result of economic and occupational considerations; (b) the weakening of extended family households in favor of nuclear family living arrangements; (c) the shrinking credence of the Shinto worldview vis-à-vis competing methods of interpreting experience; and (d) the defeat of Japan in the Second World War.
Both economic considerations and an increasing unwillingness among younger generations to assume traditional family roles exert ongoing pressures which seem to fuel demographic shifts and also place strains upon the corporate structure of the family. Since families traditionally were quite firmly situated in a given locality which, in turn, determined a relationship to a particular shrine and particular regional kami observances and beliefs, mobility has resulted in a much more casual relationship with shrines and less familiarity with kami focused traditions. Furthermore, the tendency for younger members of society to embrace a more scientific and technological outlook, together with Japan’s defeat which undermined the long-held belief that the nation was protected by the kami, has created a discontinuity of experience for young and old alike.
Satsuki Kawano, University of Pittsburgh
Genders play complementary roles in communal and familial rituals. Male centrality in public, communal rites is not necessarily a simple reflection of gender hierarchy and "male dominance" in broader aspects of Japanese life. In a neighborhood festival in Kamakura, the self-employed men organize and participate in the ritual procession to purify the community as a whole. Meanwhile, their wives greet the procession in front of their houses to ensure the well-being of their entire families. Therefore, as a conjugal pair, self-employed men and women take complementary roles. Similarly, in tending domestic altars, men are more likely to play ceremonial roles on special ritual occasions, while women are central in tending altars on a daily basis.
Gender in ritual practice needs to be understood in relation to other social identities of participants. Genders in middle-class white-collar families do not share the gender hierarchy and complementarity found among the self-employed. Within the layer of the self-employed, gender roles are further differentiated according to the marital status and age. Married women who are middle-aged and older are most central in taking regular care of the domestic altars, while young unmarried daughters are not. Therefore, gender roles in rituals vary as they intersect with class, occupation, age and marital status.
Brenda Robb Jenike, University of California, Los Angeles
Many Japanese are now living well past the age of the onset of chronic disease. This increased longevity combined with a social welfare policy which encourages care at home by family members means that more and more Japanese women are faced with extended years of caring for frail parents-in-law and parents at home. While conducting a survey of family caregivers in a western suburb of Tokyo in 1996, I discovered that a majority of women in one neighborhood had recently joined the new religion Soka Gakkai. The women credit their new "faith," a blend of Christian and Buddhist philosophies, with instilling in them the confidence to continue, and the belief that they will benefit spiritually through their attendance to others. Unlike traditional Buddhism, which merely emphasizes the moral obligation to care for aged parents, Soka Gakkai provides these women with needed emotional support by specifically addressing the issue of parent care and praising the women for their devotion. Through the voices of these women, as well as those of other caregivers who have stayed with traditional Buddhism, I will discuss how the deepening of religious beliefs helps to provide emotional strength and a sense of continuity for those tied to the long-term care of the chronically ill.
J. W. Traphagan, University of Michigan
For many elderly Japanese, senility (boke) represents a fate worse than death. A senile person is often seen as becoming a burden to his or her family, and the boke condition is associated with loss of status as a social entity. As such it is greatly feared. In contrast, death in Japan does not necessarily mean loss of status as a social entity. One’s ancestors are thought to be involved in the realm of the living; they are concerned with the continuity and fortunes of the household and they retain membership in the household after death. The living care for the ancestors and in return the ancestors watch over and protect the households of the living.
In response to the fear of becoming boke, many elderly Japanese visit pokkuri-dera or "sudden death temples" to pray for a swift death. Drawing from twenty interviews with elderly Japanese living in a rural part of Tohoku, I will discuss the practice of visiting pokkuri-dera. I argue that the fear of the boke condition is related to a perceived risk of falling into a uni-directional pattern of dependent behavior that conflicts with the pattern of reciprocal interdependence which characterizes normal social interactions in Japan. Such dependent behavior is connected with fears of becoming burdensome (meiwaku) on family members and thus, there is a strong preference among many older people to die suddenly, in order to avoid burdening family and prevent the potential loss of social identity associated with the boke condition.