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Houses Built For Gods: Articulations Of Urban Hokora In Kyoto, Steele Engelmann
Houses Built For Gods: Articulations Of Urban Hokora In Kyoto, Steele Engelmann
Anthropology Undergraduate Honors Theses
Amidst the urban landscape of Kyoto, Japan, there are thousands of hokora, small neighborhood shrines. This study uses social theories of pilgrimage and space to examine the articulation of hokora, community, and personal desire. As sites of local pilgrimage, hokora form networks of communal, but also individual, aspirations across the urban spiritual landscape of the city. This thesis argues that communities are connected to the larger social structures of Kyoto through hokora. As such, neighborhoods are reproduced and displayed through their hokora’s entanglements with the urban, social, and religious landscapes of Kyoto. Therefore, this study deploys an ethnographic approach to …