Traditional Place and Feminist Space The Japanese Tea Ceremony Makes Room for Empowerment
Date of Award
2010
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelors
Department
Social Sciences
First Advisor
Baram, Uzi
Keywords
Tea Ceremony, Japan, Heterotopia, Feminism, Orientalism, Anthropology, Gender, Identity, Ethnography, Space, Tradition
Area of Concentration
Anthropology
Abstract
This thesis examines the tradition of the Japanese tea ceremony as a place for feminist empowerment. I use participant observation and interviews in order to show how this feminine practice can enable women to build their own projects as agents. Tokyo and Kawaguchi, Japan are important sites for the creation and reproduction of traditional and contemporary meaning. The tea ceremony practices of those cities exist within a globalized landscape that adopts binary interpretations that contrast East from West, traditional from modern, and feminine from masculine. This thesis investigates how women doing tea ceremony within this matrix become agents defining their own practices.
Recommended Citation
Boecher, Morgan, "Traditional Place and Feminist Space The Japanese Tea Ceremony Makes Room for Empowerment" (2010). Theses & ETDs. 4224.
https://digitalcommons.ncf.edu/theses_etds/4224