Encountering Religion in the Streets of Kyoto

Free Talk Event
February 20, 2026

Religion is woven into the everyday fabric of life in contemporary Kyoto. This talk explores how Shintoism, Buddhism, and other religious traditions can be found in urban parks, city streets and daily routines, through shrines at street corners, temple precincts, seasonal festivals, memorial practices, and small acts such as offering incense or passing beneath a torii gate on the way to work. Drawing on ethnographic research and visual examples, the talk highlights how religious meaning is produced through people’s participation and ritual repetition, rather than explicit belief, marking contemporary Japanese religiosity as distinct from Western, Judaeo-Christian religious life. Kyoto’s urban landscape shows religion to be lived, pragmatic, and often understated—marked by relations to place and the non-human world. Finally, attention is given to the impact of (over) tourism and heritage preservation on Japanese religious life, with practical tips for future visitors to Japan to engage with religion respectfully.

Topics

The unique characteristics of Japanese religious life versus understandings of world religion
The differences between Shintoism and Buddhism, including between shrines and temples
How can we encounter religion in everyday life of Kyoto today?
Less visited and less-touristy sites for exploring religion in Kyoto

DR HANNAH GOULD

Hannah Gould is a cultural anthropologist studying religion, death, and material culture in Australia and North-East Asia. She is Senior Lecturer in Buddhist Studies in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne. Her most recent book is When Death Falls Apart: Making and Unmaking the Necromaterial traditions of Contemporary Japan was published with The University of Chicago Press and won the Modern Japan History Association F. Hilary Conroy First Book Prize for 2025.