A Study on Interaction between Cemetery Development and Religious Practice in Okinawa

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24720391
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Cultural anthropology/Folklore
• Research Institution: University of Hyogo (2014); University of Fukui (2012-2013)
• Principal Investigator: OCHI Ikuno 兵庫県立大学, 地域創造機構, 助教 (10624215)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 沖縄 / 墓地開発 / 宗教実践 / エージェンシー

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study discusses interaction between environmental change around tombs and religious practice in the context of development of modern Okinawa, promoted under multi-layered power structure. The focus is specifically on the changes in people’s religious practice brought by the change of the material for building tombs. Although cultural anthropology and religious studies have accumulated vast knowledge on the power of materiality as in study of the fetish or Feng Shui, discussion of cooperation between people and tombs through a perception of a tomb as an agency or a materiality was never held. This study reveals the process of networking and its structure between people and tombs, not limited to the time and space of the ritual, but through interaction in the change of materiality as environmental change around tombs.

Free Research Field

文化人類学