Overview

Aum Shinriky=o's sarin attack on the Tokyo subway in March 1995 left an indelible mark on Japanese society. This is the first book to offer a comprehensive study of the competing memories of Aum Shinriky=o's religious terrorism. Developing a sociological framework for how uneven distributions of power and resources shape commemorative processes, this book explores how the Aum Affair developed as a 'cultural trauma' in Japanese collective memory following the Tokyo attack. Interrogating an array of sources including mass media reports and interviews with victims and ex-members, it reveals the multiple clashing narratives over the causes of Aum's violence, the efficacy of 'brainwashing' and 'mind control', and whether capital punishment is justified. It shows that although cultural trauma construction requires the use of moral binaries such as 'good vs. evil', 'pure vs. impure', and 'sacred vs. profane', the entrenchment of such binary codes in commemorative processes can ultimately hinder social repair and reconciliation.

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9780197267370

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Mistakenly, I believed I had read as much as I needed or wanted to read about Aum Shinrikyo by 2018, when Asahara Shoko was executed as a result of the 1995 release of sarin gas in the Tokyo subway. Now, however, Dr Rin Ushiyama has taken the action forward by meticulously recording the varied and changing narratives of those affected, both directly and indirectly, by Aum's nefarious actions. Be they perpetrators, victims, officials, media, 'anti-cultists', scholars or intellectual commentators, each contributes to the collective memory and subsequent actions of a traumatised Japan. This is a story well worth telling - and, indubitably, well worth reading. * Eileen Barker, Professor Emeritus, London School of Economics *

Author Information

Rin Ushiyama is Lecturer in Sociology at Queen's University Belfast, a post he has held since 2021. He holds a PhD in Sociology (2017) from Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge. Previously, he was a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Sociology, Cambridge, and a Research Fellow at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge. He is currently a Co-Editor of Cultural Sociology (British Sociological Association/SAGE). He is a cultural and political sociologist interested in contested memories of violence, including war, terrorism, and colonialism with a regional focus on East Asia. His latest research investigates historical denial in the context of contemporary Japan and East Asia.

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