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Aum Shinrikyō and Religious Terrorism in Japanese Collective Memory.

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Product details

  • ISBN 9780197267370
  • Weight: 496g
  • Dimensions: 160 x 240mm
  • Publication Date: 08 Dec 2022
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Hardback
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Description

Aum Shinrikyō's sarin attack on the Tokyo subway in March 1995 left an indelible mark on Japanese society. This is the first book to offer a comprehensive study of the competing memories of Aum Shinrikyō's religious terrorism. Developing a sociological framework for how uneven distributions of power and resources shape commemorative processes, this book explores how the Aum Affair developed as a 'cultural trauma' in Japanese collective memory following the Tokyo attack. Interrogating an array of sources including mass media reports and interviews with victims and ex-members, it reveals the multiple clashing narratives over the causes of Aum's violence, the efficacy of 'brainwashing' and 'mind control', and whether capital punishment is justified. It shows that although cultural trauma construction requires the use of moral binaries such as 'good vs. evil', 'pure vs. impure', and 'sacred vs. profane', the entrenchment of such binary codes in commemorative processes can ultimately hinder social repair and reconciliation.
About
Rin Ushiyama is Lecturer in Sociology at Queen's University Belfast, a post he has held since 2021. He holds a PhD in Sociology (2017) from Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge. Previously, he was a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Sociology, Cambridge, and a Research Fellow at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge. He is currently a Co-Editor of Cultural Sociology (British Sociological Association/SAGE). He is a cultural and political sociologist interested in contested memories of violence, including war, terrorism, and colonialism with a regional focus on East Asia. His latest research investigates historical denial in the context of contemporary Japan and East Asia.