Selected Academic Publications
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Journal Articles
“Do Kentucky Kami Drink Bourbon? Exploring Parallel Glocalization in Global Shinto Offerings”
Special Issue on Globalization and East Asian Religions, edited by Ugo Dessì and Lukas Pokorny
Religions 13, no. 257 (2022): 1-15.
Abstract: Scholars of Japanese religion have recently drawn attention to the global repositioning, “greening”, and international popularization of Shinto. However, research on Shinto ritual practice and material religion continues to focus predominantly on cases located within the borders of the Japanese state. This article explores the globalization of Shinto through transnational practitioners’ strategic glocalization of everyday ritual practices outside of Japan. Drawing upon digital ethnographic fieldwork conducted in online Shinto communities, I examine three case studies centering on traditional ritual offerings made at the domestic altar (kamidana): rice, sake, and sakaki branches. I investigate how transnational Shinto communities hold in tension a multiplicity of particularistic understandings of Shinto locality and authenticity when it comes to domestic ritual practice. While relativistic approaches to glocalization locate the sacred and authentic in an archetypical or idealized form of Japanese tradition rooted in its environment, creolization and transformation valorize the particularities of one’s personal surroundings and circumstances. Examining these strategies alongside recent and historical cases in Shinto ritual at shrines within Japan, I propose that attending to processes of “parallel glocalization” helps to illuminate the quasi-fictive notion of the religious “homeland” and close the perceived gap in authenticity between ritual practices at home and abroad.
Keywords: Shinto; Japanese religion; globalization; glocalization; parallel glocalization; religion; internet; material religion; altars; kamidana
“Demystifying Remote Research in Anthropology and Asian Studies”
Asia Pacific Perspectives Vol. 17, No. 1 (2021): 52-71.
Abstract: Physically cut off from locations and archives central to our work due to restrictions in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic, area studies scholars must reimagine what constitutes rigorous and responsible research in their respective disciplines. The practice of remote research, however, is not a new one. Digital ethnography, an admittedly niche subdiscipline of anthropology, has long been grappling with the issues of how to value and conduct remote research. This essay explores a number of misconceptions regarding digital and remote research that may aid in contextualizing and coming to terms with the anxieties the broader scholarly community faces. I suggest that we strive in this moment not simply to adapt and adopt remote research as a temporary fix until we can resume business as usual, but to integrate it into our disciplinary frameworks as a legitimate and valuable mode of research.
Keywords: digital ethnography; anthropology; remote research; fieldwork; COVID-19
“Commentary—Fearful Resonances: Critiquing Arlington and American Civil Religion through the Yasukuni Problem”
Critical Asian Studies (March 15, 2021)
Edited Volume Contributions
“Consuming Shinto, Feeding the Algorithm: Exploring the Impact of Social Media Software on Global Religious Aesthetic Formations”
Digital Humanities and Religions in Asia: An Introduction
De Gruyter, 2023
Edited by L.W.C. van Lit and James Harry Morris
“Case Study—World-Wide Shintō: The Globalization of ‘Japanese’ Religion”
“Media and Technology” with Erica Baffelli
The Bloomsbury Handbook of Japanese Religions
Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021
Edited by Erica Baffelli, Fabio Rambelli, and Andrea Castiglioni