Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T13:20:20.888Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

From Selling Tea to Selling Japaneseness: Symbolic Power and the Nationalization of Cultural Practices

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 September 2011

Kristin Surak
Kristin Surak*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Universität Duisburg-Essen [[email protected]].
Get access

Abstract

This article investigates how institutions of cultural production become invested in the national meanings of their products and employ these associations for their own reproduction and expansion. The case I take is of the tea ceremony in Japan, from its pre-modern origins, through its capture by the organizational form of the iemoto system, and to its contemporary projection as a quintessence of Japaneseness. The ritual offers a particularly vivid illustration of the ways in which symbolic power can not only be periodized, first through its accumulation and then its routine exercise, but can also be successively articulated, at first with the state and then with the nation.

Résumé

L’objectif de cet article est d’explorer comment des institutions chargent de significations nationalement marquées leurs produits et utilisent ces associations dans leur stratégie de développement. Le cas étudié est la cérémonie du thé au Japon suivi depuis ses origines d’avant la modernité, puis, passant par l’organisation apparue avec le système iemoto jusqu’à sa forme contemporaine comme quintessence de la spécificité japonaise. Le rituel offre une illustration étonnamment vive de la façon dont un pouvoir symbolique peut, certes passer de la concentration à la routinisation, mais aussi se conjoindre successivement d’abord avec l’État puis avec la Nation.

Zusammenfassung

Ziel dieses Beitrages ist es, zu erkunden, wie Institutionen ihre Produkte mit nationalen Werten versehen und diese Assoziationen in ihre Entwicklungsstrategien einbauen. Der hier untersuchte Fall ist die japanische Teezeremonie, von ihren Ursprüngen über ihre Organisation im iemoto-System bis hin zu ihrer gegenwärtigen Form, als Quintessenz des Japanischen schlechthin. Dieses Ritual stellt eine erstaunlich lebendige Form symbolischer Macht dar, die nicht nur nach einer Phase der Konzentrierung zur Routine wird, sondern nacheinander sowohl den Staat als auch die Nation miteinbezieht.

Keywords

Symbolic powerCultural fieldsNationalismJapanTea ceremonyPouvoir symboliqueDomaines culturelsJaponCérémonie du thé.Symbolische MachtKulturelle GebieteNationalismusJapanTeezeremonie.
Type
Research Articles
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 52 , Issue 2 , August 2011 , pp. 175 - 208
Copyright
Copyright © A.E.S. 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Baumann, Shyon, 2001. “Intellectualization and art world development: film in the United States”, American Sociological Review, 66, pp. 404-426.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Becker, Howard, 1982. Art Worlds (Berkeley, University of California Press).Google Scholar
Berry, Mary Elizabeth, 1997. The Culture of Civil War in Kyoto (Berkeley, University of California Press).Google Scholar
Bodart, Beatrice M., 1977. “Tea and counsel. The political role of Sen Rikyu”, Monumenta Nipponica, 32 (4), pp. 49-74.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre, 1991. Language and Symbolic Power (Cambridge, Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre, 1993. The Field of Cultural Production: Essays in Art and Literature (Cambridge, Polity Press).Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre, 1996. The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field (Stanford, Stanford University Press).Google Scholar
Cross, Tim, 2009. The Ideologies of Japanese Tea: Subjectivity, Transience, and National Identity (Folkstone, Global Oriental Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cruz, Jon, 1999. Culture on the Margins: The Black Spiritual and the Rise of American Cultural Interpretation (Princeton, Princeton University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DiMaggio, Paul, 1982. “Cultural entrepreneurship in nineteenth-century Boston: the creation of an organizational base for high culture in America”, Media, Culture, and Society, 4, pp. 33-50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graham, Patricia J., 1998. Tea of the Sages: The Art of Sencha (Honolulu, University of Hawai’i Press).Google Scholar
Guth, Christine, 1993. Art, Tea, and Industry: Masuda Takashi and the Mitsui Circle (Princeton, Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Ikegami, Eiko, 2005. Bonds of Civility: Aesthetic Networks and the Political Origins of Japanese Culture (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Isozaki, Arata, 2006. Japan-ness in Architecture (Cambridge, MIT University Press).Google Scholar
Johnston, Josee and Baumann, Shyon, 2007. “Democracy versus distinction: a study of omnivorousness in gourmet food writing”, American Journal of Sociology, 113, pp. 165-204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kato, Etsuko, 2004. Tea Ceremony and Women’s Empowerment in Modern Japan: Bodies Re-Presenting the Past (London, Routledge).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kobayashi, Yoshiho, 2001. “Kôtô Jogakkô ni okeru ‘hana’ ‘cha’ no juyô”, Josei Shigaku, 12, pp. 45-59.Google Scholar
Kobayashi, Yoshiho, 2006. “Kyoiku toshite no hana: ‘hana’ ‘cha’ wa dono yôni shite josei no nasubeki mono to natta no ka”, Kenkyû Kiyô, 15, pp. 13-40.Google Scholar
Kondo, Yoshimi, 1893. Gengo Sahô Kijo no Kokoroe (Eisai, Shinshisha).Google Scholar
Kramer, Robert, 1985. The Tea Cult in History (The University of Chicago, unpublished dissertation).Google Scholar
Kumakura, Isao, 1980. Kindai Chadôshi no Kenkyû (Tokyo, Nihonhôsô Shuppankai).Google Scholar
Loveman, Mara, 2005. “The Modern State and the Primitive Accumulation of Symbolic Power”, American Journal of Sociology, 110, pp. 1651-1683.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nishiyama, Matsunosuke, 1959. Iemoto no Kenkyû (Tokyo, Yoshikawa Kôbunkan).Google Scholar
Ooms, Herman, 1998. Tokugawa Ideology: Early Constructs, 1570-680 (Ann Arbor, Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan).Google Scholar
Parkhurst Ferguson, Priscilla, 2004. Accounting for Taste: The Triumph of French Cuisine (Chicago, University of Chicago Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peterson, Richard, 1999. Creating Country Music: Fabricating Authenticity (Chicago, University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
Peterson, Richard, 2005. “Problems in comparative research: The example of omnivorousness”, Poetics, 33, pp. 257-82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peterson, Richard and Kern, Roger, 1996. “Changing highbrow taste: from snob to omnivore”, American Sociological Review, 61, pp. 900-907.Google Scholar
Pitelka, Morgan, 2005. Handmade Culture: Raku Potters, Patrons, and Tea Practitioners in Japan (Honolulu, University of Hawai’i Press).Google Scholar
Rath, Eric C., 2004. The Ethos of Noh: Actors and their Art (Cambridge, Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
Sen, Sôshitsu, 1965. “Ningen Sonchô”, Tankô, January, 18-9.Google Scholar
sen, Sôshitsu, 1967. “Shin Nen no Kotoba”, Tankô, January, 22-3.Google Scholar
Sen, Sôshitsu, 1986. “Gochisô no Kokoro”, Tankô, June, 22-3.Google Scholar
Shakai, Keizai Seisansei Honbu, 2006. Rejaa Hakusho (Tokyo, Buneisha).Google Scholar
Smith, Robert J., 1998. “Transmitting Tradition by the Rules: An Anthropological Interpretation of the Iemoto System”, in Singleton, John, ed, Learning in Likely Places: Varieties of Apprenticeship in Japan (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Tanaka, Hidetaka, 2007. Kindai Chadô no Rekishi-Shakaigaku (Kyoto, Shibunkaku).Google Scholar
Tanaka, Senshô, 1987. “Chadô Kairyôron” (Tokyo, Kôdansha).Google Scholar
Tanihata, Akio, 1988. Kinsei Chadôshi (Kyoto, Tankôsha).Google Scholar
Tanimura, Rieko, 2003. “Tea of the Warrior in the Late Tokugawa Period”, in Pitelka, Morgan, ed., Japanese Tea Culture: Art, History, and Practice (London, Routledge).Google Scholar
Varley, Paul, 1989. “Chanoyu: From the Genroku Epoch to Modern Times”, in Varley, Paul and Kumakura, Isao, eds., Tea in Japan: Essays on the History of Chanoyu, (Honolulu, University of Hawai’i Press).Google Scholar
Watsky, Andrew M., 2003. “Commerce, Politics, and Tea: The Career of Imai Sôkyû (1520-1593)”, in Pitelka, Morgan, Japanese Tea Culture: Art, History, and Practice (London, Routledge).Google Scholar