Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- Section 1 Theoretical Approaches
- Section 2 Empirical Investigations: East Asian Religions
- Section 3 Empirical Investigations: Southeast and South Asian Religions
- Section 4 Empirical Investigations: Japanese Religions in Europe and the Americas
- Section 5 Future Perspectives: Globalizing New Religions in a Postmodern World
- Index
- Publications / Global Asia
14 - Transnationalization of Japanese Religions in a Globalized World: Perspectives from Case Studies in Brazil
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2020
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- Section 1 Theoretical Approaches
- Section 2 Empirical Investigations: East Asian Religions
- Section 3 Empirical Investigations: Southeast and South Asian Religions
- Section 4 Empirical Investigations: Japanese Religions in Europe and the Americas
- Section 5 Future Perspectives: Globalizing New Religions in a Postmodern World
- Index
- Publications / Global Asia
Summary
Abstract
Globally, the largest Japanese expatriate community is found in Brazil. As a consequence, Brazil may be host to the largest number of Japanese religions which show a diversity, not only in terms of doctrinal orientation, but also their size and geographic spread of membership. For instance, some have been re-exported transnationally from a Japanese Brazilian base. Research on the transplantation of these religions to alien, that is non-Japanese, communities and societies has indicated various elements that affect their chances for survival and growth, such as the demand for new spiritual alternatives and the degree of legal and social openness in the host societies, or the prior existence of a body of teachings that favours proselytization. Based on some case studies of Japanese religions in Brazil, this chapter argues that there can be no single explanation for the success of a religion in an alien society. We need a ‘multifactor’ explanation, in which extrinsic and intrinsic factors are interdependent and complementary. Especially in a globalized world the role of charismatic and strategically smart leadership is a crucial element in the growing phenomenon of religious transnationalization.
Keywords: Japanese religions, globalization, religious transnationalization, leadership, Brazil
From the second half of the nineteenth century to the end of WWII, the expansion of Japanese religions abroad depended firstly on the Japanese politics of expanding the frontiers of its empire throughout Asia and the Pacific Islands and secondly, on the emigration of labourers to places such as Hawaii, California, Brazil, Peru and others.
Analysing the diffusion of Japanese new religions in Brazil, Korea, Thailand and the United States, Shimazono (1991) focuses on two general variables: (1) the conditions of receiving societies (for example social and legal tolerance toward foreign religions, or the demand for new creeds as a result of socioeconomic change); and (2) specific features and appeal of expanding religions (for example straightforward magical practices, practical life ethics, systematic/logical statements, positive approach to religious pluralism).
In the following sections I expand Shimazono's approach to explain the missionary success of some Japanese religions abroad. I divide my argument into two large blocs based on data from the Brazilian context.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Globalizing Asian ReligionsManagement and Marketing, pp. 295 - 316Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2019