Religious Conversion as a Breakthrough for Transculturation: A Japanese Sect in Hawaii
Based on the sociological tradition since Weber, religious commitment is seen to enhance both autonomy from secular constraint and also better adjustment to the secular environment. This interpretation is applied to a group of Japanese Americans in Hawaii who were converted to a deviant sect introdu...
Main Author: | |
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Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
Journals Online & Print: | |
Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
Published: |
Wiley-Blackwell
[1970]
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In: |
Journal for the scientific study of religion
Year: 1970, Volume: 9, Issue: 3, Pages: 181-196 |
Further subjects: | B
Theater
B Acculturation B Symbolism B Japanese culture B Vicious circles B Faith B Sectarianism B Religious Conversion B Religious dances |
Online Access: |
Volltext (Resolving-System) Volltext (doi) |
Summary: | Based on the sociological tradition since Weber, religious commitment is seen to enhance both autonomy from secular constraint and also better adjustment to the secular environment. This interpretation is applied to a group of Japanese Americans in Hawaii who were converted to a deviant sect introduced from Japan. Three characteristics of Japanese Americans--responsiveness to social sanction, striving for success, and rigidity--are changed in bipolar directions through conversion. On the one hand the convert is shown to have overcome his old cultural constraint through "de-culturation," and, on the other, to have rechanneled the same orientations for "re-socialization" in the multi-cultural setting of Hawaii. Conversion is thus interpreted as a trigger for releasing a wider range of behavioral options suited for transcultural environment. |
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ISSN: | 1468-5906 |
Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal for the scientific study of religion
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Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.2307/1384820 |