This guide, part of a new series from ReligionLink focusing on different regions in global religion reporting, provides background, resources, relevant stories and sources to help journalists understand East Asia’s religious institutions, communities, histories and political contexts.

Barbara R. Ambros is a professor in East Asian Religions in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research on Japanese Religions has focused on gender studies, human-animal relationships and place.

Benedetta Lomi is a professor of religion at Bristol University, who focuses on Japanese Buddhism, its material, and visual culture, with particular emphasis on the performative, healing and transformative dimensions of Buddhist rituals, scriptures and objects.

Ian Reader is a scholar of contemporary Japanese religion at Lancaster University whose work includes pilgrimage, Japanese Buddhism, new religious movements and religious practice in Asia.

Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm is a religion professor Williams College, who is particularly useful for reporters who need to understand why Western assumptions about “religion” can be misleading in Japan. His research examines how categories such as religion, science and superstition were constructed in modern Japan and how those categories shaped Shinto and Buddhist traditions […]