This book examines the making of heritage in contemporary Japan, investigating the ways in which particular objects, practices and institutions come to be seen as forms of heritage which are ascribed public recognition and political significance.

Introduction Part 1: Performing Japaneseness through Heritage 1. Making 'Japanese' Tea 2. Before Making Heritage: Internationalisation of Geisha in the Meiji Period 3. Making Art in the Japanese Way: Nihonga as Process and Symbolic Action Part 2: Institutionalising Japanese Heritage 4. Architecture, Folklore Studies, and Cultural Democracy: Nagakura Saburô and Hida Minzoku-mura 5. Nô Masks on Stage and in Museums: Approaches to the Contextualisation and Conservation of the Pitt Rivers Museum Nô Mask Collection 6. Company Culture or Patinated Past? The Display of Corporate Heritage in Sumitomo Part 3: Japanese Local Heritage and the Wider World 7. A Heady Heritage: The Shifting Biography of Kashira (Puppet Heads) as Cultural Heritage Objects in the Awaji Tradition 8. The Case of the Sash: A Search for Context in Okinawa 9. Houses in Motion: The Revitalization of Kyoto's Architectural Heritage 10. Automated Alterities: Movement and Identity in the History of the Japanese Kobi Ningyô Part 4: Perpetuating Japanese Heritage 11. Maintaining a Zen Tradition in Japan: The Concrete Problem of Priest Succession 12. Debating the Past to Determine the Future in Shinkyo, a Japanese Commune