Centre for Policy on Ageing



Reproducing elder male power through ritual performance in Japan
Author(s)	John W Traphagan
Journal title	Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology, vol 15, no 2, 2000
Pages	pp 81-97
Keywords	Older men ; Religion ; Customs ; Japan.
Annotation	Most research by gerontologists into the relationship between religion and ageing has focused on the potential health benefits of religious participation among Americans who follow Judeo-Christian oriented forms of worship and belief. Other religious traditions and other aspects of salience of religious participation have been less thoroughly considered. This article investigates a religious ritual in Japan, that, rather being a source of consolation, is an expression of symbolic capital associated with elder status, and thus, gerontocratic power. The ritual contributes to representing and reproducing the power of older residents in a rural Japanese community, partly due to being administratively situated within an age-grade system that is part of a neighbourhood political organisation. Through its performance, the ritual visually reproduces and represents stratified social structures that concentrate power in the hands of older male members. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-001026206 A
Classmark	BC: TR: TQC: 7DT
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...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.