Aike P Rots
Biographic Data
| ID | 1031744 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Aike P Rots |
| GIVEN NAMES | Aike P |
| FAMILY NAME | Rots |
| SIGNATURE | ROTS A P |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Oslo |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1280-878X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 16 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Crossing Boundaries: Rethinking “Japanese Religion” in the Anthropocene
This article uses the fiftieth anniversary of the JJRS as an occasion to reexamine the field, consider challenges and opportunities, and offer suggestions for how to bring Japanese religious studies more in tune with developments in adjacent academic fields and wider societal concerns. I argue that scholars of Japanese religion must engage more with the most pressing issues of our time and that they can do so by applying insights from the environ…
Whales of hope: Whaling heritage, tourism, and community belonging in twenty-first-century Japan
Utopia, theodicy, and ritual: East Asian perspectives
This response argues that 'utopia' and 'utopianism' are useful conceptual tools for analysing and comparing social practices in different historical and geographical contexts. It also suggests that the theoretical interventions put forward in this special issue can be developed further by bringing them in dialogue with cases and theories from East Asia. The response introduces the example of Tenri City in Japan, conceived in the early postwar per…
Beyond Methodological Nationalism: Three Directions for Japanese Studies
This article discusses the problem of lingering methodological nationalism within Japanese studies. It argues that methodological nationalism remains widespread not only in research but also in university teaching and public dissemination, which legitimises popular conceptions of Japan as a singular, unified entity that is essentially different from both the West and continental Asia. This methodological nationalism is a consequence of the ways i…
When Gods Drown in Plastic
Since the turn of the twenty-first century, the category animism has seen a remarkable resurgence in Western scholarship, capturing the interest of many anthropologists, scholars of religion, and philosophers. Some authors have argued that animism can provide a model for a new environmental ethics that acknowledges more-than-human agencies and interdependencies. However, the question remains as to how so-called animist ontologies can transform no…
Festivals in Asia: Patronage, Play, and Piety
This introductory article argues, on the basis of case studies in the thematic issue, that the interplay of patronage, play, and piety provides us with a productive framework for the study of Asian festivals. We focus on the frictions inherent in festivals that include multiple actors, agendas, and precedents, and that are subject to constant change. The three concepts of patronage, play, and piety serve as tools to make sense of these frictions …
Whaling on stage: A comparison of contemporary Japanese whale festivals
Conservative Japanese politicians, academics, and journalists regularly state that whaling is an essential part of their national heritage, expressed in material culture, folk songs, ritual practices, and festivals. Japan has several whale festivals (kujira matsuri): playful events at which participants re-enact Edo-period (1600–1868) coastal whaling practices and perform whaling-related songs and dances. This article compares the festivals of Ta…
Religion, Power, and the Rise of Shinto in Early Modern Japan
This book sheds new light on the relationship between religion and state in early modern Japan, and demonstrates the growing awareness of Shinto in both the political and the intellectual elite of Tokugawa Japan, even though Buddhism remained the privileged means of stately religious control. The first part analyses how the Tokugawa government aimed to control the populace via Buddhism and at the same time submitted Buddhism to the sacralization …
Trees of tension: Re-making nature in post-disaster Tohoku
The 2011 tsunami caused widespread deforestation in the coastal areas of Tohoku. In response, secular authorities, religious institutions and civil society organisations have set up a number of projects for replanting coastal forests, and arranged local tree-planting events (shokujusai). This article discusses and compares a number of these initiatives. Tree-planting carries profound symbolic capital in modern Japan, and these projects draw on pr…
Heritage-making and the transformation of religion in modern Japan
Heritage attracts a striking level of attention among the general public. The reports of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s advisory bodies, the political arm-wrestling at the annual sessions of the World Heritage Committee, and the final decisions taken there are covered at length in Japanese media. The interplay of heritage and religion has long been ignored by heritage scholars and scholars of religion alike, bu…
Sacred Heritage in Japan
Why Scholars of Religion Must Investigate the Corporate Form
A growing body of research describes connections between religion and economic activity through the language of commodification and marketization. Although this scholarship rightly challenges the assumption that religion is or should be divorced from worldly concerns, it still relies on distinctions between religion and the economy as isolable, reified entities. Rejecting this binary approach as untenable, we argue that studying the corporate for…
Strangers in the Sacred Grove: The Changing Meanings of Okinawan Utaki
This article discusses the changing significance of sacred groves (utaki) in contemporary Okinawa. Until recently, utaki were the domain of female ritual practitioners (kaminchu or noro), and men were not allowed to set foot in them. In many places, such taboos have faded away, if not disappeared altogether, and utaki have acquired new meanings in the context of mass tourism, heritage conservation, and environmental degradation. Although there ar…
Sacred Forests, Sacred Nation: The Shinto Environmentalist Paradigm and the Rediscovery of Chinju no Mori
(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)In June 2014, unique and unprecedented event took place at the shrines of Ise (Ise Jingu ...), generally considered as the most sacred site in Shinto. Dressed in the official robes of their respective traditions, religious functionaries from all over the world-representing Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, Hinduism, Islam, Roman Catholicism, Sikhism, Shinto, and various Protestant denominations-coll…
Nature’s Blessing, Nature’s Wrath: Shinto Responses to the Disasters of 2011
This chapter explains some ways in which Shinto organizations, as well as individual scholars and priests, have reacted to the disasters of 2011. It discusses the topic of shrine forests, which have taken centre stage in environment-related discourse and practices, and the symbolic significance of these forests in the light of the recent events. The chapter examines the suggestion, made by McLaughlin (2011a, 2011b) and Porcu (2012), that the even…
Why Scholars of Religion Must Investigate the Corporate Form
A growing body of research describes connections between religion and economic activity through the language of commodification and marketization. Although this scholarship rightly challenges the assumption that religion is or should be divorced from worldly concerns, it still relies on distinctions between religion and the economy as isolable, reified entities. Rejecting this binary approach as untenable, we argue that studying the corporate for…
Festivals in Asia: Patronage, Play, and Piety
This introductory article argues, on the basis of case studies in the thematic issue, that the interplay of patronage, play, and piety provides us with a productive framework for the study of Asian festivals. We focus on the frictions inherent in festivals that include multiple actors, agendas, and precedents, and that are subject to constant change. The three concepts of patronage, play, and piety serve as tools to make sense of these frictions …
Trees of tension: Re-making nature in post-disaster Tohoku
The 2011 tsunami caused widespread deforestation in the coastal areas of Tohoku. In response, secular authorities, religious institutions and civil society organisations have set up a number of projects for replanting coastal forests, and arranged local tree-planting events (shokujusai). This article discusses and compares a number of these initiatives. Tree-planting carries profound symbolic capital in modern Japan, and these projects draw on pr…
Whaling on stage: A comparison of contemporary Japanese whale festivals
Conservative Japanese politicians, academics, and journalists regularly state that whaling is an essential part of their national heritage, expressed in material culture, folk songs, ritual practices, and festivals. Japan has several whale festivals (kujira matsuri): playful events at which participants re-enact Edo-period (1600–1868) coastal whaling practices and perform whaling-related songs and dances. This article compares the festivals of Ta…
Nature’s Blessing, Nature’s Wrath: Shinto Responses to the Disasters of 2011
This chapter explains some ways in which Shinto organizations, as well as individual scholars and priests, have reacted to the disasters of 2011. It discusses the topic of shrine forests, which have taken centre stage in environment-related discourse and practices, and the symbolic significance of these forests in the light of the recent events. The chapter examines the suggestion, made by McLaughlin (2011a, 2011b) and Porcu (2012), that the even…
Sacred Forests, Sacred Nation: The Shinto Environmentalist Paradigm and the Rediscovery of Chinju no Mori
(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)In June 2014, unique and unprecedented event took place at the shrines of Ise (Ise Jingu ...), generally considered as the most sacred site in Shinto. Dressed in the official robes of their respective traditions, religious functionaries from all over the world-representing Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, Hinduism, Islam, Roman Catholicism, Sikhism, Shinto, and various Protestant denominations-coll…
Strangers in the Sacred Grove: The Changing Meanings of Okinawan Utaki
This article discusses the changing significance of sacred groves (utaki) in contemporary Okinawa. Until recently, utaki were the domain of female ritual practitioners (kaminchu or noro), and men were not allowed to set foot in them. In many places, such taboos have faded away, if not disappeared altogether, and utaki have acquired new meanings in the context of mass tourism, heritage conservation, and environmental degradation. Although there ar…
Heritage-making and the transformation of religion in modern Japan
Heritage attracts a striking level of attention among the general public. The reports of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s advisory bodies, the political arm-wrestling at the annual sessions of the World Heritage Committee, and the final decisions taken there are covered at length in Japanese media. The interplay of heritage and religion has long been ignored by heritage scholars and scholars of religion alike, bu…
Sacred Heritage in Japan
Why Scholars of Religion Must Investigate the Corporate Form
A growing body of research describes connections between religion and economic activity through the language of commodification and marketization. Although this scholarship rightly challenges the assumption that religion is or should be divorced from worldly concerns, it still relies on distinctions between religion and the economy as isolable, reified entities. Rejecting this binary approach as untenable, we argue that studying the corporate for…
Religion, Power, and the Rise of Shinto in Early Modern Japan
This book sheds new light on the relationship between religion and state in early modern Japan, and demonstrates the growing awareness of Shinto in both the political and the intellectual elite of Tokugawa Japan, even though Buddhism remained the privileged means of stately religious control. The first part analyses how the Tokugawa government aimed to control the populace via Buddhism and at the same time submitted Buddhism to the sacralization …
Trees of tension: Re-making nature in post-disaster Tohoku
The 2011 tsunami caused widespread deforestation in the coastal areas of Tohoku. In response, secular authorities, religious institutions and civil society organisations have set up a number of projects for replanting coastal forests, and arranged local tree-planting events (shokujusai). This article discusses and compares a number of these initiatives. Tree-planting carries profound symbolic capital in modern Japan, and these projects draw on pr…
Beyond Methodological Nationalism: Three Directions for Japanese Studies
This article discusses the problem of lingering methodological nationalism within Japanese studies. It argues that methodological nationalism remains widespread not only in research but also in university teaching and public dissemination, which legitimises popular conceptions of Japan as a singular, unified entity that is essentially different from both the West and continental Asia. This methodological nationalism is a consequence of the ways i…
When Gods Drown in Plastic
Since the turn of the twenty-first century, the category animism has seen a remarkable resurgence in Western scholarship, capturing the interest of many anthropologists, scholars of religion, and philosophers. Some authors have argued that animism can provide a model for a new environmental ethics that acknowledges more-than-human agencies and interdependencies. However, the question remains as to how so-called animist ontologies can transform no…
Festivals in Asia: Patronage, Play, and Piety
This introductory article argues, on the basis of case studies in the thematic issue, that the interplay of patronage, play, and piety provides us with a productive framework for the study of Asian festivals. We focus on the frictions inherent in festivals that include multiple actors, agendas, and precedents, and that are subject to constant change. The three concepts of patronage, play, and piety serve as tools to make sense of these frictions …
Whaling on stage: A comparison of contemporary Japanese whale festivals
Conservative Japanese politicians, academics, and journalists regularly state that whaling is an essential part of their national heritage, expressed in material culture, folk songs, ritual practices, and festivals. Japan has several whale festivals (kujira matsuri): playful events at which participants re-enact Edo-period (1600–1868) coastal whaling practices and perform whaling-related songs and dances. This article compares the festivals of Ta…
Utopia, theodicy, and ritual: East Asian perspectives
This response argues that 'utopia' and 'utopianism' are useful conceptual tools for analysing and comparing social practices in different historical and geographical contexts. It also suggests that the theoretical interventions put forward in this special issue can be developed further by bringing them in dialogue with cases and theories from East Asia. The response introduces the example of Tenri City in Japan, conceived in the early postwar per…
Crossing Boundaries: Rethinking “Japanese Religion” in the Anthropocene
This article uses the fiftieth anniversary of the JJRS as an occasion to reexamine the field, consider challenges and opportunities, and offer suggestions for how to bring Japanese religious studies more in tune with developments in adjacent academic fields and wider societal concerns. I argue that scholars of Japanese religion must engage more with the most pressing issues of our time and that they can do so by applying insights from the environ…
Whales of hope: Whaling heritage, tourism, and community belonging in twenty-first-century Japan
Japanese History and Culture (12 works) · History (10 works) · Political science (10 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Environmental ethics (8 works) · Archaeology (7 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Aesthetics (5 works) · Art (4 works)