Paper short abstract:

This paper compares changes in attitudes toward death and burial practices between the Japanese mainland, Korea and Taiwan under Japanese rule. It is emphasized that Japan used burial policies to align the Korean and Taiwanese family system to the Japanese one in order to prepare for assimilation.

Paper long abstract:

The modernization process after the Meiji Restoration was as thorough as to even concern funerary practices. Fire burial and public cemeteries were (re-)introduced and spread through the country and also pushed onto colonial territories. Before Korea opened its ports, the perception of death and dying as well as customs in burial practice had been thoroughly Confucian. Because of the sacred nature of one's ancestors bones, earth burial grave sites tended to be close to the house or on designated "sacred mountains" and had a guardian function for the bereaved. Taiwan shared these Confucian values of interment and ancestor worship, furthermore reburial practices were commonplace.

Such customs were not necessarily challenged by the Christian missionaries who were active in the respective territories. Similar attitudes and the common practice of earth burials ensured quick successes for missionary work - even though Christianity forbid ancestor rituals, they were often tolerated. However, practices and customs were heavily challenged by the Japanese colonial authorities, who used the "merits of modernization", such as improving hygiene to prevent contagious disease etc. as pretexts to reform burial practices. Such policies ultimately aimed at curbing the influence of Confucian thought and folk customs that authorities perceived as obstacles to colonial rule. Thus, the Japanese policies, while meeting non-acceptance even in the homeland, were used as a tool to put a more efficient system of funerary practice into place that aimed at changing the cultural mindset of the colonized in order to facilitate colonization and prepare for assimilation.

Today, ancestor rituals are still common in both Koreas, and also Taiwan kept its distinct burial culture. Still, influences of the changes made by Japan remain traceable. The conceptional changes that occurred during colonial rule and resulting anthropological problems have to be tackled in order to gain a proper understanding of Korean and Taiwanese history during Japanese rule in general. Therefore, an assessment of the meaning and impact of Japanese policies in everyday colonial life and how the Japanese policies were dealt with after the end of colonial rule is required.

Paper short abstract:

In the debate about the legislation of passive euthanasia, Living Wills are treated as a means of self-determination in medical decision-making. However, drawing on empirical data I will show that the Living Will is used as a tool to avoid interpersonal conflicts at the deathbed.

Paper long abstract:

With improvements in medical healthcare and hygiene, and the spread of medical technologies death and dying became more and more a medical event, taking place in the hospital. These new technologies made it possible to save lives, for example by using defibrillation or mechanical ventilation. Thus, using all means available to prolong a patient's life as long as possible became the norm. However, these new technologies also produced new medical conditions such as patients in an irreversible coma. This led to the question, whether life-prolongation with all means available is always desirable.

Since 1976 the Japan Society for Euthanasia - renamed as Society for Death with Dignity in 1983 - questions the practice of so called "meaningless life prolongation" and campaigns for a legal recognition of the right to die and Living Wills. In their rhetoric, Living Wills are treated as a means of patient autonomy, intended to em-power patients and permit physician to withhold life-sustaining treatments.

Living Wills have become increasingly common in the last decades and since 2012 the Japanese parliament has been debating about the legislation of Living Wills and (passive) euthanasia. But how does the individual make the decision to sign a Living Will and what kind of meaning is ascribed to it?

Drawing on qualitative interviews, I argue that for the individual the Living Will is a tool to take precautions like arranging the own funeral and buying a grave. One of the main concerns is to avoid conflicts between either relatives or relatives and the physician at the deathbed. Overall, the interpretations of Living Wills by my interviewees reflect their notion of self, their experiences with illness and death and how they perceive their relationships with others. Information about the medical situations for which the living will is written, play a minor role in the decision-making process.

Paper short abstract:

Within the hegemonic population discourse the super-aged society is problematized as a society of many deaths (tashishakai). The Japanese funeral industry is trying to tackle this issue by transferring the responsibility onto the individual through end-of-life-activation (shūkatsu).

Paper long abstract:

In a super-aged society with the baby boomer generation growing old, death is steadily becoming a central issue in public discourse in Japan. While fewer and fewer children are born (shōshika), the number of deaths is constantly growing (tashishakai) with the year 2040 looming as "peak death". Already, in metropolitan areas the dead are competing with the living for the scarce space, whereas graveyards in rural areas are affected by depopulation and are being abandoned or moved to the cities. Future graveyards are conceptualized not in width but in height, with fully automated columbaria conquering the city space.

Within the hegemonic demographic discourse, changes in family structures, such as the tendency to remain single and childless and to die alone (kodokushi), are problematized as risks for the financial and social cohesion of the whole society. One way out has been proposed by the funeral industry, which has developed a program aimed at the individual consumer level. Under the label shūkatsu (終活), individuals are asked to make arrangements for their grave, funeral, inheritance, elderly care and to consider how they want to spend their remaining years of life. This activity, that fits perfectly in the self-management paradigm, whereby individuals are subjected to run their lives as if they were running an enterprise, is slowly becoming a norm that individuals have to follow in order not to be a burden for their family, the community and the state.

In this paper I will ask how the funeral industry envisions the ideal shūkatsu self as a means to grapple with changing consumer attitudes that are jeopardizing its previously secure existence on the one hand, and how the addressed subjects interpret this program in their everyday lives on the other hand. I will further show trends in funeral practices and attitudes towards death, that are shaping land and cityscapes and creating new opportunities for self-expression in death.