Boundary Work and Religious Authority among Ordained Buddhist Women in Contemporary Japan

Abstract

This paper explores how ordained Buddhist women define and implement their clerical role within the context of a seculari zed societ y, and the indeterminacy of the clerical lifestyle in contemporary Japan. Ordained women may live a monastic life or head a temple, or they may also live “secular” lives, married or not. How do they claim religious authority and legitimize their agency under these conditions? I argue here that boundary work, or the creation, contesting, bridging, and dissolving of boundaries, is an important means to this end. On the one hand, boundaries such as those of gender are often experienced as having strongly constraining and even discriminating effects. On the other hand, actively drawing or bridging boundaries from male clerics, other ordained women, or lay Buddhists is a means of creating solidarity, elevating women’s contribution to the clerical role, and legitimizing various actions and appearances as conforming to that role.