The Role of Religion in the Life of Zainichi Koreans in Japan
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2016.4.1.229-243Keywords:
Zainichi Koreans, religions, folk religion, identity, representationsAbstract
Among the many elements that define people’s identity is ethnicity, which refers mainly to a person’s or a group’s sociocultural heritage, based on characteristics such as common or shared national origin, language, religion, dietary preferences, dress and manners, and other traits that denote a common ancestry. Religious identity, especially if shared, can influence one’s socioeconomic adjustment within an ethnic boundary that promotes ethnic identity, and religious faith can be a source of ethnic and even inter-ethnic solidarity. Korean immigrants in Japan established numerous mutual aid organizations, religious institutions, and self-governing bodies that aimed to promote the welfare of Korean communities, and thus work to establish the Korean identity in Japan. The religious practice of Japan’s Korean minority represents Confucianism, Christianity, shamanism, and Buddhism, or even a combination of two or more of them. This paper asks whether religion worked as a strong homogenising and distinguishing factor in the case of Korean minority and how did this role change through the generations of Koreans in Japan?
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References
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Brown, Lisa. 2015. “Caught Between Two Countries: Zainichi Koreans in Japan.” Virginia Review of Asian Studies 17: 254–61.
Chapman, David. 2006. “Discourses of Multicultural coexistence (Tabunka kyōsei) and the ‘Oldcomer’ Korean Residenst of Japan.” Asian Ethnicity 7 (1): 89–102.
Clark, Donald N. 2000. Culture and Customs of Korea. Westport, Connecticut, London: Greenwood Press.
Gladney, Dru C., ed. 1998. “Introduction: Making and Marking Majorities.” In Making Majorities Constituting the Nation in Japan, Korea, China, Malaysia, Fiji, Turkey, and The United States, 1–9. Stanford University Press Stanford, California.
Hardacre, Helen. 1990. Kuromizukyo and the New Religions of Japan. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Hurh, Won Moo, and Kwang Chung Kim. 1990. “Religious Participation of Korean Immigrants in the United States.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 29 (1) (March): 19–34.
Hicks, George L. 1997. Japan’s Hidden Apartheid: the Korean Minority and the Japanese. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Inadsugi, Tadashi. 2002. “Zainichi Kankoku, Chōsenjin no shakai idō.” In Minzoku kankei ni okeru ketsugō to bunri, edited by Tomio Tani, 559–95. Tōkyō: Minerva.
Iwabuchi, Koichi. 2005. “Political Correctness, Postcoloniality, and the Selfrepresentation of ‘Koreanness’ in Japan.” In Koreans in Japan. Critical Voices from the Margin, edited by Sonia Ryang, 55–73. London and New York: Routledge Curzon.
Iida, Takafumi. 1988. “Folk Religion among the Koreans in Japan – The Shamanism of the “Korean Temples.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 15 (2–3): 155–82. Accessed October 25, 2015. https://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/nfile/2381.
Iida, Takafumi 飯田剛史. 2002. Zainichi Korian no Shūkyō to Matsuri. Minzoku to Shūkyō no Shakaigaku 在日コリアンの宗教と祭り―民族と宗教の社会学―. Tōkyō: Sekai Shisōsha.
–––. 2013. “The Full Gospel Church and Korean Shamanism in Japan-Resident Korean Society Shamanism as a Universal Foundational Religion.” Accessed May 6, 2015. http://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/en/files/2013/04/PS-4-Iida.pdf.
Kokot, Waltraud, Khachig Tölölyan and Carolin Alfonso, eds. 2004. “Introduction.” Diaspora, Identity and Religion. New directions in theory and research, 1–8. London, New York: Routledge.
Kwang, Chung Kim, Stephen R. Warner, and Ho-Youn Kwon. 2001. Korean American Religion in International Perspective. Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press.
Lee, Grace. 2003. “The Political Philosophy of Juche.” Stanford Journal of East Asian Affairs 3 (1): 105–12. Accessed October 9, 2015. https://web.stanford.
edu/group/sjeaa/journal3/korea1.pdf.
Lie, John. 2008. Zainichi (Koreans in Japan). Diasporic Nationalism and Postcolonial Identity. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press.
Ministry of Justice (Hōmushō 法務省). 2015. “Zairyū gaikokujin tōkei (Kyūtōroku gakikokujin tōkei) tōkeihyō 在留外国人統計（旧登録外国人統計）統計表.” June 5, 2015. Accessed November 15, 2015. http://www.estat.
go.jp/SG1/estat/List.do?lid=000001139146.
“North Korean Christianity.” Accessed November 25, 2015. http://
northkoreanchristians.com/juche-idea.html.
Ogawa, Nobuhiko 小川 伸彦, and Teraoka Shingo 寺岡 伸悟. 1993. “Mainoriti soshikino esunishiti – Zainichi Kwang San Kim Shi Shinzokukai Chōsa yori – マイノリティ組織のエスニシティ:--在日光山金氏親族会調査より--.” The Japan Sociological Society 44 (2): 131–46, 240.
Pace, Enzo. 2005. “Religion and Migration.” In Comparative European Research in Migration, Diversity and Identities, edited by Wolfgang Boswich and Charles Husband, 113–23. Bilbao: Publications of University of Deusto.
Pakhomov, Oleg. 2011. “Re-entered Communities: Ethnic Discrimination Risk Management of the Korean Diaspora in Russia, the United States, and Japan.” PhD Dissertation. Kyoto: University of Kyoto.
Visočnik, Nataša. 2013. “Self and Other – Representations of the Korean Minority in Japan.” Dve domovini 37: 113–21.
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Published
29.02.2016
How to Cite
VISOČNIK, N. (2016). The Role of Religion in the Life of Zainichi Koreans in Japan. Asian Studies, 4(1), 229–243. https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2016.4.1.229-243
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Narrations and Religious Histories
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