TY - CHAP

T1 - Gendering Religious Labor and Buddhist Temple Economies in Contemporary Japan

AU - Kolata, Paulina

PY - 2024/6/13

Y1 - 2024/6/13

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

BT - Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion, Gender and Sexuality

A2 - Llewellyn, Dawn

A2 - Sharma, Sonya

A2 - Hawthorne, Sian

PB - Bloomsbury Publishing plc

ER -