Description

This roundtable brings together five scholars specializing in contemporary shrine Shinto (jinja shintō) to discuss the challenges and potential benefits of using ethnographic and anthropological research methods. The participating scholars represent different fields of specialization, including gender, depopulation, and law, and have varying degrees of familiarity with fieldwork as a method. The panel will consist of brief statements by each participant followed by a discussion amongst the panellists, before the floor is opened for questions from the audience.

Fieldwork in Japan can be a complicated and time-consuming matter, as gaining access to sites and informants often requires introductions from shared acquaintances or colleagues within the field. This is also the case for those who study the shrine world (jinjakai). Contemporary shrine Shinto is a multifaceted world, where individual shrines and priests have almost complete autonomy vis-à-vis the larger shrine organizations, chief of which is Jinja Honchō (the National Association of Shinto Shrines). At the same time, the community of Shinto shrines and priests often tends to operate more through personal bonds of friendship than through institutional ties.

The participants in this roundtable rely on their personal fieldwork experiences as a lens through which to reflect on the challenges and rewards involved in studying shrine Shinto using ethnographic and anthropological methods. A range of topics will be discussed, including: How does one gain access to fieldwork sites? To what extent does the topic of one’s research decide whether informants can be found? How does one go about navigating the institutional and bureaucratic structures of the shrine world? What research topics are deemed controversial by shrine priests, and what can one do when one’s research questions become a hinderance?

When compared to Buddhism, sect Shinto (kyōha shintō), and many new religions, shrine Shinto can come across as an understudied religion in contemporary Japan. The participants in this panel all share the belief that more fieldwork is key to producing new insights on how the shrine world operates today, and the panel is intended to contribute to furthering this endeavour.