Negotiations of the Sacred: Kyoto’s Gion Matsuri and the Shifting Boundaries of a Japanese Festival

Elisabetta Porcu follows the complex negotiations behind the festival and the reinstatement of the ato matsuri as she investigates the boundaries between sacred and secular geographies (the temporary shrine and governmental buildings) and the areas where these boundaries blur, such as the constitutional separation of religion and the state. Because tourism and traditional culture—and the Gion Matsuri in particular—play a prominent role in the promotion of Kyoto, Porcu’s study places the festival within glocalization processes to reveal the ways in which global influences are absorbed and reinterpreted according to local specifications and traditions. Throughout, she explores how power dynamics intersect with claims of authority, ownership, and distribution of the sacred.

Porcu’s own autobiography and positionality in the Global South and embodied experience of the matsuri, as well as her life in Kyoto, deeply shape the analysis and theoretical trajectory of this volume. As a woman scholar conducting research in the Gion Matsuri’s overtly male environment, she enriches the theoretical framing of her work by offering innovative insights on methodological issues related to gendered fieldwork, hegemonic power relations, and patterns of exclusion and control within contested spaces. Negotiations of the Sacred will be welcomed by students and scholars of Japan, particularly those interested in religion, festivals, folklore, political and social structures, and cultural heritage.