Organizer and Chair: Natacha N. Aveline, CNRS, France

Discussant: Jean-Michel Butel, INALCO

Although Japan and China are experiencing opposite trends in terms of religious spirituality –secularization taking place in the former case, while ritual practices are re-emerging in the latter case–, both countries are facing new conflicts regarding the use of sacred space. In Japan, the decline of religion in large cities, together with the dramatic shift of residents towards suburban areas, has eroded the financial resources of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines in the central business districts. Both communities therefore try to draw additional incomes from their landholdings, through the development/densification of cemeteries and the construction of rental facilities (office or residential buildings, parking lots). However, these strategies do not necessarily meet the agreement of the parishioners, and conflicts can arise between economic and spiritual/symbolic uses of sacred space. Conflicts of a similar sort are observed in China, in both urban and rural areas. Central and local authorities are putting pressure for profitable uses of Buddhist or Taoist sites –through tourism or property development–, but local communities and protectors of religious heritage attempt to promote, through various forms, the re-emergence of ritual spatiality. This panel will bring together anthropologists and geographers involved in both Chinese and Japanese studies on sacred space. It will explore the various ways by which religious sites can be converted into profitable assets, and examine the different modes of conflicts that arise from these changes. Three cases of conflicting uses will be discussed, in Wenzhou (Zhejiang Province), Mt Wudang (Hubei Province), and Tokyo.

Interrupting State and Capitalist De-Territorialization: Ritual Spatiality in Rural Wenzhou  

Mayfair Yang, University of California, Santa Barbara

In the past two decades, in rural Wenzhou along the southeast China coast, the landscape has witnessed unprecedented transformation. Rapid urbanization, industrialization, and road-building have replaced the rice paddies and water buffaloes and blackened the ancient water transport canals that threaded the region. The land that was given to the peasants at the beginning of the 1980’s has all but been re-appropriated by the state for profitable re-selling on the market and for real estate development. Amidst this state and capitalist de-territorialization, ritual spatiality is not only re-emerging, but thriving in unexpected ways. Countless deity temples, ancestor halls, churches, Buddhist and Daoist temples and monasteries have been either restored or built, offering sites for varied religious rituals. Less noticed, but equally significant is the growing retrieval of material and social space into a transcendant cosmic-divine space of the gods. This cosmic re-territorialization can be seen in such phenomena as: large public ritual processions the gods to inspect the ritual boundaries of the community; the cosmic jurisdiction of such territorial gods as the Earth God and the City God; the importance of fengshui or geomancy for not only siting temples, graves, and homes, but also factories; and the center pole (zhongtangfu) within homes that connects each family to the celestial bureaucracy.

Shin-yi Chao, Rutgers University

Over the past two decades, local governments in China have commonly promoted tourism at religious sites to boost the local economy. Mt. Wudang provides an important example of this. A sacred site in Daoist typology for over a millennium, the mountain has established itself as a major pilgrimage center in China since the thirteenth century. Forced to close down as a religious institution during the Cultural Revolution, it returned to the public arena in 1980s and has since hosted an increasing flux of visitors who enjoy its scenic, temporal, and spiritual treasures. The revenue that it generates serves an important source of local government finance. Local officials, who currently hold an ambivalent attitude toward religion, tend to characterize Mt. Wudang as a tourist site rather than a pilgrimage center. Religious activities on the mountain which elicit revenue are encouraged; those which cater solely to spiritual needs are not. The mountain's traditional pilgrimage paths, for example, consist of steep stone steps whose slow, old fashioned progression reenacts a spiritual journey. They have been virtually obliterated to make way for modern paved roads that can accommodate large luxury tourist buses. The needs of the state impinge on the mountain's religious identity. The demands of modern mass tourism combined with the government's antipathy toward religion has presented a conflict between Mt. Wudang's pecuniary benefits and the spiritual ones that originally made the mountain so important.

Natacha N. Aveline, CNRS, France

The intense urban renewal process under way in Tokyo has not spared religious space. Monthly rental parking lots, office buildings and condominiums have flourished within the sacred boundaries of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines. Like other landowners, religious communities are trying to benefit from the tremendous profits derived from land. Communities managing temples and shrines in central Tokyo are particularly incited to do so, as the decrease of residents in central areas –due to the rapid conversion of residential zones into business districts under the pressure of the land markets– severely threatens their balance sheets. Optimization of land holdings through long-term real estate investment is consequently seen as the best option to secure future operating revenues. However, the strategy differs in the two types of communities, as the Buddhists can draw additional resources from the redevelopment of their cemeteries (into multi-level crematoriums for example) and the expansion of funeral-related services. To measure the recent change in sacred space occurring in central Tokyo, I used the jûtaku shizu, documents which are similar to cadastral maps and provide comprehensive information on land use. Limiting my research to the temples and shrines of Tokyo’s three central wards (totaling around 300 sites), I made an inventory of the various « secular » facilities seeking commercial purposes within sacred boundaries, and I provide a rough approximation of the surface they occupy.

Fabienne Duteil-Ogata, Université Marc Bloch

In 2001, it was decided that a graveyard should be developed in the Suwa shrine, a Shinto shrine located in the center of Tokyo. This was an extraordinary decision, given the fact that Shinto shrines usually do not host cemeteries within their boundaries, contrary to Buddhist temples. According to the development plan, half of the surface of the shinto shrine had to be covered by graves. The parishioners had not been informed of this decision by the supervisors of their community, and only discovered the fact when construction started. Their reaction was to mobilize the local residents to counter the project. The matter was so important that it was brought before the courts. The sentence has not been passed yet, but the construction has been interrupted. It is clear that economics is the main motivating factor for both partners involved in the development project, i.e. the developer of the graveyard and the shinto shrine. The former is sure to earn millions of yen from the sale of funeral land, while the latter can benefit from providing space for Shinto graves and associated Shinto funeral services, which provide substantial income. On the one hand, the economic stakes are indisputable, on the other hand, the symbolic stakes are also not lacking. We can find both economic and symbolic/religious interests in the arguments of both protagonists.