Japanese Buddhism and Social Action: the case of Soka Gakkai in Brazil

Resumo

This paper discusses possibilities regarding the articulation between religions and the third sector that go beyond the provision of provision of certain services and attendance to certain sectors of society neglected by the state. It is based on a case study done in the Southern part of Brazil with Soka Gakkai International (“International Value-Creation Society”; also, SGI), a lay Buddhist movement founded in Japan in 1930 that has now over 12 million members in 190 countries.With an analysis based on anthropological fieldwork, this essay aims to understand how new religious movements, specifically the International Association Brazil Soka Gakkai (BSGI), create innovative strategies of interpretation and accommodation into a specific religious field, presenting themselves in Brazil as a NGO and not as a religious group. The contradictory way BSGI uses the image and the practice of a NGO responds to their own necessity: the recruitment and maintenance of members. I suggest that the insertion of religious groups on the third sector may bear more complexities than simply the supplying of services or resources to fill a gap left by he state. This article will show the ambiguities of a group that answers to the necessities of a country laid in immense social inequalities but, at the same time, uses this process as a marketing strategy and as a plan of action to recruit new members.