ISSN:
1573-0719
Keywords:
Aging
;
Age grades
;
Japan
;
Religion
;
Ritual
;
Symbolic capital
Source:
Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
Topics:
Ethnic Sciences
,
Sociology
Notes:
Abstract Most research by gerontologists into the relationshipbetween religion and aging has focused upon thepotential health benefits of religious participationamong Americans who follow Judeo-Christian orientedforms of worship and belief. This research has shownthat both as a social institution and source ofexistential meaning, religion provides an importantresource for older people in terms of fellowship andas a means of coping and adapting to social change andpersonal loss. Other religious traditions and otheraspects of salience of religious participation forolder people have been less thoroughly considered. This article investigates a religious ritual in Japan,that, rather than being a source of consolation, is anexpression of symbolic capital associated with elderstatus and, thus, gerontocratic power. The ritualcontributes to representing and reproducing the powerof older residents in a rural Japanese community,partly due to its being administratively situatedwithin an age-grade system that is a part ofneighborhood political organization. Through itsperformance, the ritual visually reproduces andrepresents stratified social structures thatconcentrate power in the hands of male members of thesenior age grade.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1006746332409
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