Grave changes

This article examines the formation and growth of the Grave-Free Promotion Society (GFPS), a civic group formed in 1990 to promote the scattering of human ashes in Japan. Changing family structures and a critical lack of sufficient burial space have led to a "grave revolution" since the end of the 1980s. Scattering sits at the intersection of legal battles over the ambiguous status of cremated remains, historical debates over what constitutes …