Routledge. - Death and Dying in Contemporary Japan

This book has been overdue, which has much to do with losing, consecutively, my baby, my younger sister, and my mother. I lost all my family members by 2010. I thank all contributors to this book who waited patiently for publication. They certainly are the most sympathetic of scholars.

I especially thank the many brilliant professors and colleagues whom I met in Death, Dying and Disposal Conferences at the University of Bath, UK. Special thank-yous go to Allan Kellehear, Tony Walter, and Douglas J. Davies for reading and commenting on the manuscript.

I was blessed to have professors, professionals, and colleagues who provided me with mental and emotional support during this time. Especially after the death of my mother, Dennis Peck, Joy Hendry, Linda Morton, Gordon Mathews and his wife, Yoko, Reverend Yuse and his wife, Yuriko, gave me the warmth I lost. Without their encouragements, kindness, and compassion this book would not have seen the light of day.

Finally, I thank my husband for being there for me while I went through these personal tragedies. Without him I would not have been able to smile again.

Sbastien Penmellen Boret holds an MPhil in Social Anthropology from the University of Oxford and a PhD in Anthropology from Oxford Brookes University. He is the author of Japanese Tree Burial: Kinship, Ecology and Death (Routledge, 2013). His current research concerns the politics of memorialisation in the reconstruction of post-Tsunami Japan in which he examines the concepts and roles of memory, religion, and the state. Further research projects include traditional satoyama forestry and peoples relationships with forests in contemporary Japan as they relate to global environmental debates. Sbastien has taught at Oxford Brookes University, Rigas Stradina University (Latvia), and the University of Oxford.

Christopher P. Hood is Director of the Cardiff Japanese Studies Centre, Cardiff University. His publications include: Dealing with Disaster in Japan: Japanese and Global Responses to the Flight JL123 Crash (Routledge, 2011), The Shinkansens Local Impact ( Social Science Japan Journal , 2010), Shinkansen: From Bullet Train to Symbol of Modern Japan (Routledge, 2006), From polling station to political station? Politics and the shinkansen ( Japan Forum , 2006), Japanese Education Reform: Nakasones Legacy (Routledge, 2001), and The Politics of Modern Japan (editor, 4 volumes, Routledge, 2008).

Haruyo Inoue is Professor of Toyo University, Department of Life Design, Japan. She is the author of Gendai ohaka jijou (Issues of contemporary graves) (Sougensha, 1990), Ima sgi ohaka ga kawaru (Funeral and graves are changing now) (Sanseido, 1993), Hakao meguru kazokuron (Family theory surrounding graves) (Heibonsha, 2000), and Haka to kazoku no heny (Changing graves and family) (Iwanamishoten, 2003). She has written numerous articles on death rituals, changing graves, tree-burials, cherry burials, and the relationship between the living and the dead.

Satsuki Kawano is Associate Professor at the University of Guelph, Canada. Her publications include: Ritual Practice in Modern Japan: Ordering Place, People, and Action (University of Hawaii Press, 2005) and Natures Embrace: Japans Aging Urbanites and New Death Rites (University of Hawaii Press, 2010). Her research interests include ritual, death and dying, aging, family and kinship, and child-rearing.

Sawa Kurotani is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Redlands. Her first book, Home Away from Home (Duke University Press, 2005), was based on her multi-sited ethnographic research on the transnational experiences of Japanese middle-class housewives who accompany their husbands job transfer to the United States. Her current research centres on the lived work experience of Japanese female professionals and the impact of the social, economic, and legal changes in the Japanese workplace.

Susan Orpett Long is Professor of Anthropology and served as founding Director of the East Asian Studies programme at John Carroll University. Her research interests include comparative medical systems, family change, care of the elderly and the cross-cultural study of bioethical issues. She is the author of Final Days: Japanese Culture and Choice at the End of Life (University of Hawaii Press, 2005) and Family Change and the Life Course (Cornell University East Asia Papers, 1987). She edited Lives in Motion: Composing Circles of Self and Community in Japan (Cornell University East Asia Papers, 1999) and Caring for the Elderly in Japan and the US: Practices and Policies (Routledge, 2000) as well as numerous articles and book chapters.

Gordon Mathews is Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He has written Ghetto at the Center of the World: Chungking Mansions, Hong Kong (Chicago University Press, 2011), Global Culture/Individual Identity: Searching for Home in the Cultural Supermarket (Routledge, 2000), What Makes Life Worth Living? How Japanese and Americans Make Sense of Their Worlds (California University Press, 1996), and co-written Hong Kong, China: Learning to Belong to a Nation (Routledge, 2008). He published in Japan Forum Understanding Japanese Society Through Life After Death (2011).

Hikaru Suzuki holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from Harvard University and MBA in Marketing from University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is a research associate at the University of Sydney, Department of Japanese Studies, Australia. She is the author of The Price of Death: The Funeral Industry in Contemporary Japan (Stanford, 2000). She was an associate editor of Encyclopedia of Death and the Human Experience (Sage, 2009). Her research interests are death rituals, the funeral industry and its services, suicide, and pet death.

Iwayumi Suzuki is Professor of Religious Studies, Graduate School of Arts and Letters, Tohoku University, Japan. He is co-author of Ima, kono nihonno kazoku-kizuna no yukue (Todays Japanese family: whereabouts of their bonds) (Kobundo, 2010). He has written Dynamics of Ethnicity, State, and Religion Seen through Tombs: Nomadizing Religion and Floating Communality, Topology of Salvation in Contemporary Northeast Asia (Tohoku University Center for Northeast Asian Studies, 2011), Mountain and God ( Japanese Journal of Mountain Medicine , 2007), The cemeterization of Osorezan: Observed Trend of Recent Years ( Bulletin of Folklore Society of Tohoku , 2007) and other numerous articles.

Daisuke Tanaka is research associate at Waseda University, Japan, and an adjunct lecturer at Tokyo Zokei University, Japan. His research interests fall mainly in the field of postmortem practices in industrial society, with fieldwork research focusing on commercialised modern funeral services. He is also a member of Anthropological Studies of Suffering and Care, the joint research project at the National Museum of Ethnology.