ABSTRACT
Support activities geared up in Japan at the time of the Hanshin Earthquake in Kobe in 1995. More Japanese opt for streamlined versions: the ‘direct funeral’ or ‘family funeral’ at the graveside that forego the elaboration of a more formal affair where attendants are treated to a meal, drink, and gifts. In the domain of care, much research is being done on the development of technological caregiving; Japan’s R & D in care robotics is the most advanced in the world, driven by the country’s highly aging society and what is already a care deficit. In modern Japan, grievability has been the purview of the family; one grieves, and is grieved by, others who are linked by marriage or blood. Advocating the disaggregation of the burial system from the family and family grave, he initiated a new way of being buried and memorialized outside family attachments the same year.
