Aum Shinrikyo and Religious Terrorism in Japanese Collective Memory

Aum Shinrikyō’s sarin attack on the Tokyo subway in March 1995 left an indelible mark on Japanese society. This book is the first comprehensive study of the competing memories of Aum Shinrikyō’s religious terrorism. Developing a sociological framework for how uneven distributions of power and resources shape commemorative processes, this book explores how the Aum Affair developed as a ‘cultural trauma’ in Japanese collective memory following the Tokyo attack. The book shows how numerous stakeholders, including the state, the mass media, public intellectuals, victims, and perpetrators offered competing narratives about the causes and consequences of Aum’s violence. Combining multiple methods including media content analysis, participant observation, and original interviews with victims and ex-members, this book reveals various flashpoints of contention such as the state regulation of religion, ‘brainwashing’ and ‘mind control’ controversies, and the morality of capital punishment. It shows that although cultural trauma construction requires the use of moral binaries such as ‘good vs.. evil’ and ‘sacred vs.. profane’, the entrenchment of such binary codes in commemorative processes can ultimately hinder social repair and reconciliation

Existence theory revisited: A reply to our critics

In this essay, we provide a comprehensive reply to the critical commentaries by David Inglis, Thomas Kemple, William Outhwaite, Simon Susen, Bryan S. Turner, and Robin Wagner-Pacifici. Our reply is structured along three main pillars. Firstly, we clarify what we aim to achieve with existence theory. Drawing on neo-pragmatist philosophy, our aim is to present a new and useful perspective on a wide range of social phenomena; we do not attempt to tackle or resolve broad philosophical issues. Secondly, we demonstrate that we do not subscribe to an algorithmic notion of society which posits that people’s trajectories have to fit a neat, linear pathway. Related, we do not wish to impose a normative model that endorses the existential milestones that are dominant in any particular society. Thirdly, building on various helpful pointers from our critics, we elaborate on various ways in which the theory could be enriched and further developed: for instance, by bringing in insights from the sociology of generations, critical theory, and sociological studies of the body. </jats:p

Introduction to the special issue on existence theory

After exploring the main tenets of existence theory and the affinities between this theory and other philosophical traditions, this introduction lists the central points of each contribution to this special issue. In what follows, we provide a brief synopsis of the critical commentaries by David Inglis, Simon Susen, Robin Wagner-Pacifici, Bryan S. Turner, William Outhwaite, and Thomas Kemple. </jats:p

Cultural trauma, counter-narratives, and dialogical intellectuals: the works of Murakami Haruki and Mori Tatsuya in the context of the Aum affair

In this article, we offer a new conceptualization of intellectuals as carriers of cultural trauma through a case study of the Aum Affair, a series of crimes and terrorist attacks committed by the Japanese new religious movement Aum Shinrikyō. In understanding the performative roles intellectuals play in trauma construction, we offer a new dichotomy between “authoritative intellectuals,” who draw on their privileged parcours and status to impose a distinct trauma narrative, and “dialogical intellectuals,” who engage with local actors dialogically to produce polyphonic and open-ended trauma narratives. We identify three dimensions of dialogical intellectual action: firstly, the intellectuals may be involved in dialogue with local participants; secondly, the intellectual products themselves may be dialogical in content; and thirdly, there might be a concerted effort on the part of the intellectuals to record and to disseminate dialogue between local participants. In the context of the Aum Affair, we analyze the works of Murakami Haruki and Mori Tatsuya as dialogical intellectuals while they sought, with the help of local actors’ experiences, to challenge and to alter the orthodox trauma narrative of Aum Shinrikyō as exclusively a social evil external to Japanese society and an enemy to be excluded from it. Towards the end of the article, we discuss the broader significance of this case study and suggest that in light of recent societal and technological developments, the role and scope of dialogical intellectuals as carriers of trauma are changing and possibly expanding

Memory struggles: Narrating and commemorating the Aum Affair in contemporary Japan, 1994-2015

This dissertation investigates how different stakeholders have competed over the interpretation and commemoration of the Aum Affair. The Aum Affair was a series of crimes committed by new religious movement Aum Shinrikyō between 1988 and 1995, which culminated in the gassing of the Tokyo subway system using sarin in March 1995. The Tokyo attack was the largest act of terrorism in post-war Japan. I combine qualitative methods of media analysis, interviews, and participant observation to analyse how different stakeholders have narrated and commemorated the Aum Affair. I propose ‘collective trauma’ as a revised theory of ‘cultural trauma’ to describe an event which is represented as harmful and indelible to collective memory and identity. In contrast to ‘cultural trauma’, which stresses the importance of symbolic representations of traumatic events, ‘collective trauma’ considers other ‘material’ processes – such as establishing facts, collective action, state responses, and litigation – which also contribute to trauma construction. My overarching argument is that various stakeholders – including state authorities, mass media, public intellectuals, victims, and former Aum believers – have constructed the Aum Affair as a collective trauma in multiple and conflicting ways. Many media representations situated Aum as an evil ‘cult’ which ‘brainwashed’ believers and intended to take over Japan through terror. State authorities also responded by treating Aum as a dangerous terrorist group. In some instances, these binary representations of Japan locked in a struggle against an evil force led to municipal governments violating the civil rights of Aum believers. Some individuals such as public intellectuals and former believers have challenged this divisive view by treating Aum as a ‘religion’, not a ‘cult’, and locating the root causes of Aum’s growth in Japanese society. Additionally, victims and former members have pursued divergent goals such as retributive justice, financial reparations, and social reconciliation through their public actions. A key conclusion of this dissertation is that whilst confronting horrific acts of violence may require social construction of collective trauma using cultural codes of good and evil, the entrenchment of these symbolic categories can result in lasting social tension and division.Cambridge Commonwealth, European and International Trust, Cambridge International Scholarship 2013-16. Trinity Hall Graduate Research Fund. Department of Sociology Graduate Research Fund

Introduction

This introductory chapter begins by noting the cultural significance of Aum Shinrikyō's terrorism as a watershed moment in recent Japanese history. This chapter highlights the wide-ranging impacts of the Aum Affair on Japanese culture and politics, including public distrust of controversial religions, debates about ‘brainwashing’, and victims' rights. Contrasting the scope of this book with existing research on Aum Shinrikyō, this chapter argues that the social consequences of the Affair cannot be adequately understood without reference to issues of collective memory and commemoration. It proffers ‘cultural trauma’ as a useful framework for understanding the multiple symbolic representations that have emerged in response to Aum's religious terrorism. This is followed by an outline of the chapters which follow.</p

‘Comfort women must fall’? Japanese governmental responses to ‘comfort women’ statues around the world

This article examines Japanese governmental responses to memorial statues dedicated to ‘comfort women’ – women across the Asia-Pacific whom the Japanese military forced into conditions now recognised as sexual slavery before and during World War Two. This article discusses four cases around the world in which Japanese government officials have demanded the removal of comfort women statues: 1) Glendale, California; 2) San Francisco; 3) Manila; and 4) Berlin. The global expansion of comfort women memorialisation is significant to contemporary statue politics and crises of memory in three ways. Firstly, East Asian diasporas have become important actors in the remembrance of Japanese colonialism and the Asia-Pacific War outside East Asia. Secondly, these statues constitute attempts by diasporas to recover and reclaim a traumatic past through material culture. Thirdly, despite the global geographical reach of comfort women memory activism, neither nationalism nor the power of the nation-state have declined in today’s transnational world. </jats:p

The ‘laughing chorus’ of ordinary actors: Mikhail Bakhtin’s sociology of critical capacity

This article proposes to re-examine the utility of Mikhail Bakhtin’s concepts as contributions to pragmatic sociology/sociology of critique. This article demonstrates how Bakhtin’s thinking complements Luc Boltanski’s sociology of critique in sharing central ideas about the power-laden dynamics of language and the ability of ordinary actors to resist ideological domination. This article demonstrates that Bakhtin emphasised the capacity of dominated actors to challenge social order using strategies such as parody and ridicule, encapsulated in the image of a ‘laughing chorus’ of public crowds. The final section proposes several avenues through which Bakhtinian concepts could be synthesised with pragmatic sociology

‘Comfort Women Must Fall’? Japanese governmental responses to ‘comfort women’ statues around the world

This article examines attempts by Japanese government representatives to remove or prevent the installation of memorial statues dedicated to ‘comfort women’ – women across the Asia-Pacific whom the Japanese military forced into conditions now recognised as sexual slavery before and during World War Two. This article examines four cases around the world in which Japanese regional and national government officials have demanded the removal of comfort women statues: 1) Glendale, California; 2) San Francisco, California; 3) Manila, the Philippines; and 4) Berlin, Germany. Japanese actors were unsuccessful in the U.S., successful in the Philippines, and partially successful in Germany. Through a discussion of these cases, this article argues that the global expansion of comfort women memorialisation constitutes an important case for understanding contemporary statue politics. Firstly, East Asian diasporas have become important actors in orchestrating the commemoration of Japanese colonialism and the Asia-Pacific War outside East Asia. Secondly, these memorials constitute attempts by diasporas to recover and reclaim a traumatic past through material culture. Thirdly, despite the geographically transnational scope of memory activism surrounding comfort women, both proponents and critics of comfort women statues have anchored their arguments in nationalist symbols and narratives. As a result, this article argues that neither nationalism nor the power of the nation-state have declined in today’s transnational world.British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship pf17005