ABSTRACT
Japan’s super-aged society has generated a segment of the elderly who are threatened by solitary death. Dying without the death ritual is on the rise. One solution is the memorial community (kuyō no kai), which consists of a group of people who prepay to be buried in a shared burial site. They form a supportive network inter vivos, call each other “tomb friends” and undertake mass memorial services performed at an institution-often at a Buddhist temple—for the repose of departed souls. This study investigates the development of the market for end-of-life activities (shūkatsu) that involve preplanning of death rituals. It interrogates the making of the memorial community. The analytical approach is actor-network theory. It stresses the importance of human and nonhuman elements of actor networks when explaining societal practices. Informants’ narratives are used to illuminate the constitution of memorial community as a moral institution, the role of culturally eclectic ritual artifacts and sacralized materials as moral objects, and the positioning of the emergent death ritual practices relative to alternative, conventional practices.
