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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 [kristin.surak@gmail.com].
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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

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