Gendering Religious Labor and Buddhist Temple Economies in Contemporary Japan
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Book chapter › Research › peer-review
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Gendering Religious Labor and Buddhist Temple Economies in Contemporary Japan. / Kolata, Paulina.
Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion, Gender and Sexuality. ed. / Dawn Llewellyn; Sonya Sharma; Sian Hawthorne. Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2024. p. 195-211.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Book chapter › Research › peer-review
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TY - CHAP
T1 - Gendering Religious Labor and Buddhist Temple Economies in Contemporary Japan
AU - Kolata, Paulina
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - This chapter explores the entanglement of Buddhism, gender, and economy. It argues that women and their labor constitute the economic bedrock of Buddhist temple communities in contemporary Japan. By focusing on religious labor of two Buddhist women, I show how women practitioners are active agents in Buddhist economic structures and play crucial roles in stimulating and propelling Buddhist circular economy forward on institutional, communal, and domestic levels. The chapter focuses on lay and non-elite Buddhist women in Jōdo Shinshū temple communities: a Buddhist temple wife and a lay member of a local Buddhist women association. In doing so, it unravels the complex and often gendered dimensions of Buddhist economic structures by considering women’s ritual and voluntary labor. Through ethnographic detail, the chapter brings into focus aspects of contemporary Japanese Buddhism that are routinely dismissed as being marginal to “real” Buddhist practice, and the gendered dimensions of labor that sustain it.
AB - This chapter explores the entanglement of Buddhism, gender, and economy. It argues that women and their labor constitute the economic bedrock of Buddhist temple communities in contemporary Japan. By focusing on religious labor of two Buddhist women, I show how women practitioners are active agents in Buddhist economic structures and play crucial roles in stimulating and propelling Buddhist circular economy forward on institutional, communal, and domestic levels. The chapter focuses on lay and non-elite Buddhist women in Jōdo Shinshū temple communities: a Buddhist temple wife and a lay member of a local Buddhist women association. In doing so, it unravels the complex and often gendered dimensions of Buddhist economic structures by considering women’s ritual and voluntary labor. Through ethnographic detail, the chapter brings into focus aspects of contemporary Japanese Buddhism that are routinely dismissed as being marginal to “real” Buddhist practice, and the gendered dimensions of labor that sustain it.
KW - Faculty of Humanities
KW - Japanese Buddhism
KW - Jodo Shinshu
KW - economic networks
KW - Buddhist temple economies
KW - religious labour
KW - Volunteering
KW - Buddhist materiality
KW - Buddhist giving
KW - fundraising
M3 - Book chapter
SN - 9781350257177
SP - 195
EP - 211
BT - Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion, Gender and Sexuality
A2 - Llewellyn, Dawn
A2 - Sharma, Sonya
A2 - Hawthorne, Sian
PB - Bloomsbury Publishing plc
ER -
ID: 360341649