D. P. Martinez - Böcker

Japan is one of the most urbanised and industrialised countries in the world. Yet the Japanese continue to practise a variety of religious rituals and ceremonies despite the high-tech, highly regimented nature of Japanese society. Ceremony and Ritual in Japan focuses on the traditional and religious aspects of Japanese society from an anthropological perspective, presenting new material and making cross-cultural comparisons.The chapters in this collection cover topics as diverse as funerals and mourning, sweeping, women's roles in ritual, the division of ceremonial foods into bitter and sweet, the history of a shrine, the playing of games, the exchange of towels and the relationship between ceremony and the workplace. The book provides an overview of the meaning of tradition, and looks at the way in which new ceremonies have sprung up in changing circumstances, while old ones have been preserved, or have developed new meanings.

Since the end of the 1980s, scholarly work on Japan has attempted to escape the bounds of the previous discourse that continuously described it as ‘changing Japan’, a discourse which paradoxically also focused, in the main, on the hierarchical models of this so-called vertical society. While accepting the rapid rate of social change and enduring continuities within Japan, this new wave of work also looked at the micro-level by trying to place people within the framework of ‘the’ Japanese model.The four volumes in this Routledge Major Work bring together the most useful new-wave essays written from the 1990s onwards, together with the several key and ‘classic’ articles written in earlier decades in order to build up a more nuanced portrait of modern Japanese culture and society.The first part of Volume I looks at the macro level of politics and the economy. The second part moves from material focusing on the structure of society to the rise of civil society and the effect the recession in the 1990s has had on individuals.The other three volumes have a similar two-part structure, with a key introductory article—or articles—to set the scene (in addition to the editor’s Introduction to the set as a whole). The focus moves from larger structures, to the life course of individuals in Volume II, through to key issues about Japanese culture in Volume III. Volume IV will address religion and the diversity of contemporary Japanese society.This collection of essential journal articles and other extracts is an important research resource and will be welcomed by all scholars and students of modern Japan.

Japan is one of the most urbanised and industrialised countries in the world. Yet the Japanese continue to practise a variety of religious rituals and ceremonies despite the high-tech, highly regimented nature of Japanese society. Ceremony and Ritual in Japan focuses on the traditional and religious aspects of Japanese society from an anthropological perspective, presenting new material and making cross-cultural comparisons.The chapters in this collection cover topics as diverse as funerals and mourning, sweeping, women's roles in ritual, the division of ceremonial foods into bitter and sweet, the history of a shrine, the playing of games, the exchange of towels and the relationship between ceremony and the workplace. The book provides an overview of the meaning of tradition, and looks at the way in which new ceremonies have sprung up in changing circumstances, while old ones have been preserved, or have developed new meanings.