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This article explores the Japanese notion of luck as a relational mode of action that encapsulates a complex understanding about self, society, and cosmos. Drawing on ethnographic data gathered in 30 urban homes in the Kansai region (Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto, Nara) in 2003, I aim to demonstrate how, by engaging in a range of material practices, people create beneficial connections with spirits, people, and places to protect the home from malevolent influences and to ensure the happiness and well-being of its occupants. It will be argued that this protective system can be maintained only through both the relentless 'labor of luck' performed by married women as 'moral persons' and the persistent circulation of luck between religious institutions, commercial businesses, and homes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the circulation and consumption of Japanese commodities invested with an informal, domestic form of spirituality, translated as ‘luck’. Tambiah has argued that the dissemination of spiritual power objectified in Thai Buddhist amulets reflects the ‘differential power distribution’ and ‘social control’ vested in an hierarchically ordered lay society. My Japanese case study suggests that commodification of religious forms enables a more democratic diffusion of spirituality. Good luck charms are neither sacred nor secular; they challenge the supposed divide between the aesthetic value and utility of objects. They are part of extended networks of human and non-human agents, but through their various trajectories they also retain an independent agency rooted in their material properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]