Sociology of Death In Japan

This session has two central objectives. First, it examines contemporary phenomena surrounding death in turbulent times, using Japan as an empirical case. Second, it investigates how globalization reshapes the experiences of death, practices surrounding the dead, and understandings of mortality. Japan is one of the world's most advanced super-aged societies and is simultaneously experiencing increasing mortality, individualization, medicalization, and digitalization, making it a particularly illuminating case for sociological inquiries into death and aging. Rather than treating Japan as a local peculiarity, this session positions it as a leading case of population aging and the emergence of a high-mortality society, thereby aiming to integrate insights from Japan into broader international debates within the sociology of death. In this session, five presenters will examine diverse dimensions of death in contemporary Japan through the following thematic lenses: (1) historical changes in fear of death and nihilism in Japan and their theoretical determinants; (2) death and material culture within a postmodern society; (3) the contemporary role of Buddhism in relation to mortality; and (4) the memory politics surrounding the massacre of ethnic minorities in Japan. Taken together, these presentations offer a cross-cutting examination of theory, memory, religion, politics, and culture, thereby contributing to the international reconfiguration of the sociology of death.