Abstract
Itako are religious practitioners of North-east Japan, whose activity witnessed significant changes starting from the post-war period. This work will discuss the possibility of interpreting itako’s activity as inventive traditions, presupposing the constitutively fictional and imaginative nature of all traditions. Starting from a two-year fieldwork in Tōhoku, this work will try and determine how the tradition modified in the last fifty years, in connection with Japan’s post-war, postmodern cultural changes, how the practitioners introduced some new elements to the established practice and how the historical and cultural changings, while threatening the very existence of this tradition, also offered the possibility for inventive action.
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Marianna Zanetta (2017). The Itako of Tōhoku: Between Tradition and Change. In: Palmisano, S., Pannofino, N. (eds) Invention of Tradition and Syncretism in Contemporary Religions. Palgrave Studies in New Religions and Alternative Spiritualities. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61097-9_2
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