About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherRoutledge

ISBN-100415517060

ISBN-139780415517065

eBay Product ID (ePID)167690723

Product Key Features

Number of Pages222 Pages

Publication NameJapanese Tree Burial : Ecology, Kinship and the Culture of Death

LanguageEnglish

SubjectEthnic Studies / General, Death & Dying, Plants / Trees, Ecosystems & Habitats / Forests & Rainforests, Regional Studies, Ecology, Customs & Traditions

Publication Year2014

TypeTextbook

Subject AreaNature, Social Science

AuthorSébastien Penmellen Boret

SeriesJapan Anthropology Workshop Ser.

FormatHardcover

Dimensions

Item Height0.8 in

Item Weight16.8 Oz

Item Length9.4 in

Item Width6.1 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceCollege Audience

LCCN2013-026403

Reviews"By examining innovative forms of burial and the embedded and sometimes competing and contradictory notions of the self, death, the natural world, and the world beyond, Penmellen Boret shows that innovative burial practices in contemporary Japan reveal and contribute to important transformations in Japanese society as a whole. I trust that Tree Burial will find a wide and appreciative audience." Mark McGuire(John Abbott College) H-Shukyo, H-Net Reviews. August, 2015

Dewey Edition23

IllustratedYes

Dewey Decimal393

Table Of ContentForward Preface by Joy Hendry Prologue 1. Introduction: Questions for the Anthropology of Tree Disposals 2. The Birth of Japanese Tree-Burial 3. Kinship, Demographic and Economic Matters 4. Identities, Memorialisation and Agency 5. Bonds, Nature Workshops and Collective Memorials 6. Ecological Immortality and Ideas of the Afterlife 7. Conclusions: Towards a liberalization of death in Japan?

SynopsisTree burial, a new form of disposal for the cremated remains of the dead, was created in 1999 by Chisaka Genpo, the head priest of a Zen Buddhist temple in northern Japan. Instead of a conventional family gravestone, perpetuating the continuity of a household and its identity, tree burial uses vast woodlands as cemeteries, with each burial spot marked by a tree and a small wooden tablet inscribed with the name of the deceased. Tree burial is gaining popularity, and is a highly-effective means of promoting the rehabilitation of Japanese forestland critically damaged by post-war government mismanagement. This book, based on extensive original research, explores the phenomenon of tree burial, tracing its development, discussing the factors which motivate Japanese people to choose tree burial, and examining the impact of tree burial on traditional views of death, memorialisation, and the afterlife. The author argues that non-traditional, non-ancestral modes of burial have become a means of negotiating new social orders and that this symbiosis of environmentalism and memorialisation corroborates the idea that graveyards are not only places for the containment of human remains and the memorialisation of the dead, but spaces where people (re)construct, challenge, and find new senses of belonging to the wider society in which they live. Throughout, the book demonstrates how the new practice fits with developing ideas of ecology, with the individual's corporality nourishing the earth and thus re-entering the cycle of life in nature.

LC Classification NumberGT3284.A2B67 2014