Erica Baffelli
Biographic Data
| ID | 573298 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Erica Baffelli |
| GIVEN NAMES | Erica |
| FAMILY NAME | Baffelli |
| SIGNATURE | BAFFELLI E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Manchester |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3236-8814 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 8 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 21 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Disinformation and Conspiracy Narratives in the Online Media Strategy of Happy Science (Kōfuku no Kagaku)
This article examines the online media strategy of the religious group “Kōfuku no Kagaku” (Happy Science) and its political arm “Kōfuku Jitsugentō” (Happiness Realization Party) through two analyses: a quantitative analysis of the group’s news outlets and a qualitative analysis of a YouTube channel. Combining large data analysis with close reading we examine the group’s use of right-wing discourse, conspiracy narratives, pro-Russian disinformatio…
“Being with”
its networks and practices adapted to the challenges of the COVID‐19 pandemic. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, it explores how the organisation's activities, rooted in Jōdō Shū teachings and informed by the ethos of "being with" and shien 支縁 (reciprocal support grounded in karmic bonds), combined material assistance with the cultivation of affective and relational ties. Pre‐existing micro‐ and macro‐level networks enabled a rapid response to e…
A connection to support each other
This paper explores deathwork in Tokyo’s San’ya district, formerly known as one of Japan’s major yoseba (day-labour market) and now as a welfare neighbourhood. It examines the establishment of multi-faith, non-profit collective graves hosted by a Pure Land temple, serving primarily, but not exclusively, rough sleepers and socially disconnected individuals. Supported by a network of local organisations and volunteers, these graves are accompanied …
The Future Past of a ‘Religious Town’
Religion and minority in Japanese contexts
This collection brings together five contributions that draw on ethnographic research into a range of cases from Japanese contexts to explore religion and minority from a variety of perspectives. This introduction provides a brief overview of the key questions and themes that the collection addresses. How is minority religion constructed and by whom? What is the impact of minority status on a group or an individual’s marginalisation and exclusion…
Fear and the construction of minority religions in Japan
This contribution uses examples from ‘new religions’ (shinshūkyō) to discuss how minority religions have been constructed in Japan, highlighting in particular the centrality of fear in the creation and perpetuation of minority status. Groups labelled as new religions have, since the late nineteenth century, provided the blueprint for defining what is considered ‘mainstream’ or ‘proper’ religion, often associated with supposedly ‘traditional’ reli…
Living Aum
This article examines the experiences of female Aum Shinrikyō members who left the group after the 1995 sarin gas attack in Tokyo, but who are unable to reject Aum and the lives they had lived inside it completely. Based on interviews and material published by Aum, the article discusses what it meant for these women to “live Aum” while they were members, and why many of them have been unable to move on. It focuses on the extreme ascetic practices…
The Bloomsbury Handbook of Japanese Religions
Providing an overview of current cutting-edge research in the field of Japanese religions, this Handbook is the most up-to-date guide to contemporary scholarship in the field. As well as charting innovative research taking place, this book also points to new directions for future research, covering both the modern and pre-modern periods. Edited by Erica Baffelli, Andrea Castiglioni, and Fabio Rambelli, The Bloomsbury Handbook of Japanese Religion…
Spatio-Temporal Translations
During the COVID-19 pandemic, access to space has been strictly regulated and restricted. Many of us feel acutely disconnected from our relationships, while at the same time new forms of (virtual) intimacies have become ubiquitous. In the pandemic present, nearly all interpersonal relations are now characterised by a double absence that is concrete and material, and also emotional and felt. This article offers a theoretical reflection on how cond…
The Aesthetics and Emotions of Religious Belonging
The articles in this special issue illuminate the importance of aesthetics, affect, and emotion in the formation of religious communities through examples from the Buddhist world. This introduction reads across the contributors’ findings from different regions (China, India, Japan, and Tibet) and eras (from the 17th to the 21st centuries) to highlight common themes. It discusses how Buddhist communities can take shape around feelings of togethern…
Communities of Absence
This article argues that belonging can be characterized by absence. It explores this as experienced in two different geographical and historical contexts by two groups of actors: members of the early Tibetan diaspora in India (1959–1979) and former members of a religious group (Aum Shinrikyō) in Japan. The absence we conceptualize is double: it is not solely a spatial absence, but also a temporal absence in terms of the irreversibility of time. I…
Dynamism and the Ageing of a Japanese ‘New’ Religion
This book examines the trajectory and development of the Japanese religious movement Agonshu and its charismatic founder Kiriyama Seiyu. Based on field research spanning 30 years, it examines Agonshu from when it first captured attention in the 1980s with its spectacular rituals and use of media technologies, through its period of stagnation, and then up to its response to the 2016 death of its founder. The book discusses the significance of char…
Dynamism and the Ageing of a Japanese 'New' Religion
Dynamism and the Ageing of a Japanese 'New' Religion
"This book examines the trajectory and development of the Japanese religious movement, Agonshu, commonly portrayed in Japan as a 'new religion', and its charismatic founder Kiriyama Seiyu. Based on field research spanning 30 years it examines Agonshu from when it first captured attention in the 1980s with its spectacular rituals and use of media technologies, through a period of stagnation, until its response to the 2016 death of its founder. Via…
Mass Media and Religion in Japan
The development of the new Japanese religions (the so-called shinshukyo), right since their first appearance at the end of the 19th century, has always been wholly tied to the development of the means of mass communication. Numerous studies have investigated Japanese new religious movements, but there has been little study of the role played by the media in their development. This article presents an analysis of the relationship between new relig…
Media and New Religions in Japan
Japanese "new religions"shinshūkyō have used various media forms for \ntraining, communicating with members, presenting their messages, reinforcing or protecting \nthe image of the leader and potentially attracting converts. In this book, the complex and dual \nrelationship between the media and new religions is investigated by looking at the tensions \ngroups face between the need for visibility and the risks of facing attacks and \ncriticism th…
Media and New Religions in Japan
The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781135117849, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivative 4.0 license. Japanese "new religions" (shinshūkyō) have used various media forms for training, communicating with members, presenting their messages, reinforcing or protecting the image of the leader, and, potentially, attracting converts. In this book the complex a…
Drawing on Tradition
Book Review| August 01 2014 Drawing on Tradition: Manga, Anime and Religion in Contemporary Japan Drawing on Tradition: Manga, Anime and Religion in Contemporary Japan. By Jolyon Baraka Thomas. University of Hawai'i Press, 2012. 199 pages. $25 paper. Erica Baffelli Erica Baffelli University Of Manchester Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Nova Religio (2014) 18 (1): 105–107. https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2014.1…
Hikari no Wa
In March 2007 Jōyū Fumihiro, ex-spokesperson of Aum Shinrikyō and exrepresentative of Aleph, set up a new religious organization called Hikari no Wa (literally "Circle of Light") with around two hundred members. Hikari no Wa strongly and publicly rejects Asahara's authority, and the image the group is trying to construct and promote is centered on its desire to separate itself from Aum. Furthermore, the group seems interested in exploring differe…
Japanese New Religions and the Internet
Kofuku no Kagaku was founded in 1986 by Okawa Ryuho and it remains one of the most interesting of the Japanese new religious movements in terms of its use of media. However, until December 2004, the only official Japanese website of the group was that of its publishing house. This paper discusses why a group whose success was, from the beginning, connected to an extensive use of mass media decided to open its official website quite late in its li…
Sōka Gakkai and Politics in Japan
Sōka Gakkai, the largest of the so‐called New Religions ( shinshūkyō ) in Japan, was founded in the 1930s by the educator Makiguchi Tsunesaburō and started its political involvement during the 1950s under its second president Toda Jōsei. Sōka Gakkai was not unique among new religions in being actively involved in politics after the Second World War; several other religious groups supported their candidates or joined political committees. However,…
Media and New Religions in Japan
The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781135117849, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivative 4.0 license. Japanese "new religions" (shinshūkyō) have used various media forms for training, communicating with members, presenting their messages, reinforcing or protecting the image of the leader, and, potentially, attracting converts. In this book the complex a…
The Aesthetics and Emotions of Religious Belonging
The articles in this special issue illuminate the importance of aesthetics, affect, and emotion in the formation of religious communities through examples from the Buddhist world. This introduction reads across the contributors’ findings from different regions (China, India, Japan, and Tibet) and eras (from the 17th to the 21st centuries) to highlight common themes. It discusses how Buddhist communities can take shape around feelings of togethern…
Communities of Absence
This article argues that belonging can be characterized by absence. It explores this as experienced in two different geographical and historical contexts by two groups of actors: members of the early Tibetan diaspora in India (1959–1979) and former members of a religious group (Aum Shinrikyō) in Japan. The absence we conceptualize is double: it is not solely a spatial absence, but also a temporal absence in terms of the irreversibility of time. I…
Sōka Gakkai and Politics in Japan
Sōka Gakkai, the largest of the so‐called New Religions ( shinshūkyō ) in Japan, was founded in the 1930s by the educator Makiguchi Tsunesaburō and started its political involvement during the 1950s under its second president Toda Jōsei. Sōka Gakkai was not unique among new religions in being actively involved in politics after the Second World War; several other religious groups supported their candidates or joined political committees. However,…
Japanese New Religions and the Internet
Kofuku no Kagaku was founded in 1986 by Okawa Ryuho and it remains one of the most interesting of the Japanese new religious movements in terms of its use of media. However, until December 2004, the only official Japanese website of the group was that of its publishing house. This paper discusses why a group whose success was, from the beginning, connected to an extensive use of mass media decided to open its official website quite late in its li…
Hikari no Wa
In March 2007 Jōyū Fumihiro, ex-spokesperson of Aum Shinrikyō and exrepresentative of Aleph, set up a new religious organization called Hikari no Wa (literally "Circle of Light") with around two hundred members. Hikari no Wa strongly and publicly rejects Asahara's authority, and the image the group is trying to construct and promote is centered on its desire to separate itself from Aum. Furthermore, the group seems interested in exploring differe…
Drawing on Tradition
Book Review| August 01 2014 Drawing on Tradition: Manga, Anime and Religion in Contemporary Japan Drawing on Tradition: Manga, Anime and Religion in Contemporary Japan. By Jolyon Baraka Thomas. University of Hawai'i Press, 2012. 199 pages. $25 paper. Erica Baffelli Erica Baffelli University Of Manchester Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Nova Religio (2014) 18 (1): 105–107. https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2014.1…
Media and New Religions in Japan
Japanese "new religions"shinshūkyō have used various media forms for \ntraining, communicating with members, presenting their messages, reinforcing or protecting \nthe image of the leader and potentially attracting converts. In this book, the complex and dual \nrelationship between the media and new religions is investigated by looking at the tensions \ngroups face between the need for visibility and the risks of facing attacks and \ncriticism th…
Media and New Religions in Japan
The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781135117849, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivative 4.0 license. Japanese "new religions" (shinshūkyō) have used various media forms for training, communicating with members, presenting their messages, reinforcing or protecting the image of the leader, and, potentially, attracting converts. In this book the complex a…
Mass Media and Religion in Japan
The development of the new Japanese religions (the so-called shinshukyo), right since their first appearance at the end of the 19th century, has always been wholly tied to the development of the means of mass communication. Numerous studies have investigated Japanese new religious movements, but there has been little study of the role played by the media in their development. This article presents an analysis of the relationship between new relig…
Dynamism and the Ageing of a Japanese 'New' Religion
Dynamism and the Ageing of a Japanese 'New' Religion
"This book examines the trajectory and development of the Japanese religious movement, Agonshu, commonly portrayed in Japan as a 'new religion', and its charismatic founder Kiriyama Seiyu. Based on field research spanning 30 years it examines Agonshu from when it first captured attention in the 1980s with its spectacular rituals and use of media technologies, through a period of stagnation, until its response to the 2016 death of its founder. Via…
Dynamism and the Ageing of a Japanese ‘New’ Religion
This book examines the trajectory and development of the Japanese religious movement Agonshu and its charismatic founder Kiriyama Seiyu. Based on field research spanning 30 years, it examines Agonshu from when it first captured attention in the 1980s with its spectacular rituals and use of media technologies, through its period of stagnation, and then up to its response to the 2016 death of its founder. The book discusses the significance of char…
The Bloomsbury Handbook of Japanese Religions
Providing an overview of current cutting-edge research in the field of Japanese religions, this Handbook is the most up-to-date guide to contemporary scholarship in the field. As well as charting innovative research taking place, this book also points to new directions for future research, covering both the modern and pre-modern periods. Edited by Erica Baffelli, Andrea Castiglioni, and Fabio Rambelli, The Bloomsbury Handbook of Japanese Religion…
Spatio-Temporal Translations
During the COVID-19 pandemic, access to space has been strictly regulated and restricted. Many of us feel acutely disconnected from our relationships, while at the same time new forms of (virtual) intimacies have become ubiquitous. In the pandemic present, nearly all interpersonal relations are now characterised by a double absence that is concrete and material, and also emotional and felt. This article offers a theoretical reflection on how cond…
The Aesthetics and Emotions of Religious Belonging
The articles in this special issue illuminate the importance of aesthetics, affect, and emotion in the formation of religious communities through examples from the Buddhist world. This introduction reads across the contributors’ findings from different regions (China, India, Japan, and Tibet) and eras (from the 17th to the 21st centuries) to highlight common themes. It discusses how Buddhist communities can take shape around feelings of togethern…
Communities of Absence
This article argues that belonging can be characterized by absence. It explores this as experienced in two different geographical and historical contexts by two groups of actors: members of the early Tibetan diaspora in India (1959–1979) and former members of a religious group (Aum Shinrikyō) in Japan. The absence we conceptualize is double: it is not solely a spatial absence, but also a temporal absence in terms of the irreversibility of time. I…
Living Aum
This article examines the experiences of female Aum Shinrikyō members who left the group after the 1995 sarin gas attack in Tokyo, but who are unable to reject Aum and the lives they had lived inside it completely. Based on interviews and material published by Aum, the article discusses what it meant for these women to “live Aum” while they were members, and why many of them have been unable to move on. It focuses on the extreme ascetic practices…
The Future Past of a ‘Religious Town’
Religion and minority in Japanese contexts
This collection brings together five contributions that draw on ethnographic research into a range of cases from Japanese contexts to explore religion and minority from a variety of perspectives. This introduction provides a brief overview of the key questions and themes that the collection addresses. How is minority religion constructed and by whom? What is the impact of minority status on a group or an individual’s marginalisation and exclusion…
Fear and the construction of minority religions in Japan
This contribution uses examples from ‘new religions’ (shinshūkyō) to discuss how minority religions have been constructed in Japan, highlighting in particular the centrality of fear in the creation and perpetuation of minority status. Groups labelled as new religions have, since the late nineteenth century, provided the blueprint for defining what is considered ‘mainstream’ or ‘proper’ religion, often associated with supposedly ‘traditional’ reli…
A connection to support each other
This paper explores deathwork in Tokyo’s San’ya district, formerly known as one of Japan’s major yoseba (day-labour market) and now as a welfare neighbourhood. It examines the establishment of multi-faith, non-profit collective graves hosted by a Pure Land temple, serving primarily, but not exclusively, rough sleepers and socially disconnected individuals. Supported by a network of local organisations and volunteers, these graves are accompanied …
Disinformation and Conspiracy Narratives in the Online Media Strategy of Happy Science (Kōfuku no Kagaku)
This article examines the online media strategy of the religious group “Kōfuku no Kagaku” (Happy Science) and its political arm “Kōfuku Jitsugentō” (Happiness Realization Party) through two analyses: a quantitative analysis of the group’s news outlets and a qualitative analysis of a YouTube channel. Combining large data analysis with close reading we examine the group’s use of right-wing discourse, conspiracy narratives, pro-Russian disinformatio…
“Being with”
its networks and practices adapted to the challenges of the COVID‐19 pandemic. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, it explores how the organisation's activities, rooted in Jōdō Shū teachings and informed by the ethos of "being with" and shien 支縁 (reciprocal support grounded in karmic bonds), combined material assistance with the cultivation of affective and relational ties. Pre‐existing micro‐ and macro‐level networks enabled a rapid response to e…
Japanese History and Culture (14 works) · Sociology (13 works) · Political science (12 works) · History (11 works) · Law (11 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Asian Culture and Media Studies (7 works) · Buddhism (6 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Computer Science (5 works)