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Paper short abstract

Based on long-term fieldwork at a major Shinto shrine, I show that logics of purity are alive in contemporary Japan and serve to achieve specific social effects. Namely, by means of various restrictions, they are used to manipulate relations and to (re)produce social boundaries and hierarchies.

Paper long abstract

Cosmological categories such as purity and pollution may be experienced as ontologically given. However, besides being culturally contingent, they are also often manipulated and deployed for diverse ends. This paper examines a contemporary Shinto puzzle: within one of Japan’s biggest Shinto shrines, one matsuri (religious festival) has recently accommodated the ritual participation of a priestess, while another continues to prohibit women’s participation altogether. I argue that this contrast cannot be explained by reference to traditional beliefs alone, but must be understood in relation to how rituals and ritual restrictions can be used to achieve specific social effects.

Although notions of pollution are disappearing from mainstream Japanese culture, logics of purity remain central to Shinto thought and practice. While the number of female priests is slowly increasing and explicit mention of ‘kegare’ (pollution) is avoided for its sexist connotations, purity continues to be enacted through restrictions on access, labour, and ritual participation. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in western Japan, I show how logics of purity are alive in contemporary Japan and serve to achieve specific social outcomes. Namely, I analyse two matsuri at one of Japan’s biggest shrines, as contrasting case studies, to show how Shinto notions of purity and pollution are enacted as spatiotemporal and gendered forms of social ordering.

Tracing how ritual restrictions are justified, enforced, and contested, I show that matsuri have a “duplex existence” (Tambiah 1981): they function not only as communal techniques for averting misfortune and securing wellbeing, but also as mechanisms for (re)producing social separations and hierarchies. A close analysis of the second case study (Onisube Ritual) reveals that the exclusion of women enables local men to (1) claim an essential role in the preservation of the boundaries of society; (2) create gender separation and hierarchy; (3) lay claim to a special role in the “functional” (Nakane 1967; Lebra 1983) dimension of the home (ie 家)—traditionally, the domain of women, the basic unit of Japanese society, and a central symbol in Onisube. Ultimately, rather than mere relics of ‘tradition,’ contemporary Shinto practices of purity emerge as powerful social tools in contemporary Japan.