From a ‘good death’ to a ‘calm heart’: Buddhist retailing meets self-care in contemporary Japan

IF 0.8 3区 哲学 0 RELIGION Journal of Contemporary Religion Pub Date : 2023-05-04 DOI:10.1080/13537903.2023.2193502
Hannah Gould
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Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores how vendors of Buddhist goods, which are traditionally associated with death and funerary rites in Japan, have responded to religious decline by venturing into alternative spirituality, wellness, and home décor markets. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork within Buddhist goods stores, I examine how retailers and artisans have begun re-orientating their business models and product lines from caring for the dead at acute moments of spiritual transition to caring for the living in their everyday conditions of loneliness and stress. By pushing products that generate affects of healing (iyashi) and a calm heart (kokoro), these actors forge a new corporate–spiritual philosophy and religious consumer subjectivity and, in so doing, seek to defend their market share and social relevance in an age of secularism, disconnection, and precarity. However, for commercial actors, the space between religion and spirituality can be surprisingly treacherous and this transition challenges their skills of ‘affective retailing’.
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从“善终”到“平静的心”:佛教零售与当代日本的自我保健
摘要本文探讨了传统上与日本死亡和丧葬仪式相关的佛教商品的供应商如何通过冒险进入替代灵性,健康和家庭祭祀市场来应对宗教衰落。通过对佛教商品商店的人种学实地调查,我研究了零售商和工匠如何开始重新定位他们的商业模式和产品线,从在精神转变的危急时刻照顾死者,到照顾生活在孤独和压力下的日常生活。通过推出具有治愈效果(iyashi)和平静心灵(kokoro)的产品,这些参与者打造了一种新的企业精神哲学和宗教消费者主体性,并在这样一个世俗主义、脱节和不稳定的时代,寻求捍卫他们的市场份额和社会相关性。然而,对于商业演员来说,宗教和灵性之间的空间可能令人惊讶地变幻莫测,这种转变挑战了他们的“情感零售”技能。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
1.20
自引率
0.00%
发文量
59
期刊介绍: Journal of Contemporary Religion is an international peer reviewed journal. Its purpose is to both document and evaluate the anthropological, sociological, psychological, and philosophical aspects of emerging manifestations of religiosity in any part of the world—whether within innovative movements or mainstream institutions. The term ''religion'' in the title of this journal is understood to include contributions on spirituality. Moreover, as the journal title suggests, the focus is on contemporary issues. Therefore, the editors of Journal of Contemporary Religion welcome submissions which deal with: classical topics in the study of religion, such as secularisation and the vitality of religion or traditional sectarian movements; more recent developments in the study of religion, including religion and social problems, religion and the environment, religion and education, the transmission of religion, the materialisation and visualisation of religion in various forms, new forms of religious pluralism, the rise of new forms of religion and spirituality, religion and the Internet, religion and science, religion and globalisation, religion and the economy, etc. theoretical approaches to the study of religion; discussions of methods in relation to empirical research; qualitative and quantitative research and related issues. The Journal includes reviews of books which reflect the above themes.
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