The Ritual Spectrum: definitions, frameworks, and implications

2018

As a subject of anthropological concern, ritual emerged from the study of religion in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Bell 1997, Warburg 2016). It was not until 1977, when Sally Moore and Barbara Myerhoff published their seminal edited volume, that anthropologists directly engaged with the idea of ‘secular’ ritual, and their book set the agenda for further anthropological inquiry. In particular, Moore and Myerhoff questioned whether theories of ritual, originally devised to explain religious or spiritual ceremonies, could be useful in understanding secular ritual. They asserted that, because of its association with religion, ritual has too often been approached as a subcategory of religion instead of as a category of social action in and of itself. Yet, they argue that secular ritual can be just as significant to social life as religious ritual undoubtedly is and that as a category it deserves consideration. The momentum generated by their volume garnered some att...

Summary and Update of Research/Theory on Ritual Dynamics, 2022

The idea that rituals are crucial to human behavior is consistent with the arguments of different social scientists who have used this concept to analyze and examine society such as Durkheim, Goffman, Collins, Douglas, Leach, Kertzer, Bell, Alexander, Warner, Shils, and Bellah. However, despite the work of scholars such as these the concept of ritual has been underutilized, if not often ignored, in sociology and related disciplines.

Handout, 2023

The idea that rituals are crucial to human behavior is consistent with the arguments of different social scientists who have used this concept to analyze and examine society such as Durkheim, Goffman, Collins, Douglas, Leach, Kertzer, Bell, Alexander, Warner, Shils, and Bellah. However, despite the work of scholars such as these the concept of ritual has been underutilized, if not often ignored, in sociology and related disciplines.

The idea that rituals are crucial to human behavior is consistent with the arguments of different social scientists who have used this concept to analyze and examine society such as Durkheim, Goffman, Collins, Douglas, Leach, Kertzer, Bell, Alexander, Warner, Shils, and Bellah. However, despite the work of scholars such as these the concept of ritual has been underutilized, if not often ignored, in sociology and related disciplines.

Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses, 1980

This article sets forth a general sociological theory about the nature and-&dquo; function of ritual forms, differentiates among various kinds of rituals in relation to their manifest ritual objectives and latent social functions, and analyzes the contemporary shifts in ritual practices from the perspective of these conceptual assumptions.' 1 1 Phenomenological and functional characteristics of ritual forms Sociologists have often commented disparagingly on ritual activities. Like Merton they have tended to view rituals as meaningless routines, as unthinking habituated activities, or as the overly elaborated ceremonies accompanying certain kinds of political or religious practices. Protestant religious thinkers too have often viewed rituals critically because they sensed that a preoccupation with rites and liturgies detracted attention away either from real, inner religious experiences or from responsible moral action.2 These criticisms arise in part because of a failure to distinguish between rituals as cultural codes and certain stylized and habituated forms of behaviour, which may be acted out in keeping with these codes, and, in part, because of religious and moral critiques of particular rituals or ritualisms rather than ritual action as such. Rituals are cultural 1 This paper is based in part upon a research project, made possible by a grant from the Quebec Government's Ministry of Education, to study New Religious and Para-Religious Movements in the Montreal area. An earlier version of this paper was delivered as part of the Maurice Manel lectures in Symbolic Interaction at York University under the title: 'Symbolic Action in Contemporary Cults.' In its present form the paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Association for the Sociology of Religion, August 1979. I am indebted to other members of this research project, including Judith Castle,

Practical Theology, 2018

As a subject of anthropological concern, ritual emerged from the study of religion in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Bell 1997, Warburg 2016). It was not until 1977, when Sally Moore and Barbara Myerhoff published their seminal edited volume, that anthropologists directly engaged with the idea of 'secular' ritual, and their book set the agenda for further anthropological inquiry. In particular, Moore and Myerhoff questioned whether theories of ritual, originally devised to explain religious or spiritual ceremonies, could be useful in understanding secular ritual. They asserted that, because of its association with religion, ritual has too often been approached as a subcategory of religion instead of as a category of social action in and of itself. Yet, they argue that secular ritual can be just as significant to social life as religious ritual undoubtedly is and that as a category it deserves consideration. The momentum generated by their volume garnered some attention from anthropologists in the 1970s and 1980s, though, after the initial surge of interest, secular ritual has received comparatively very little attention in the anthropological literature since. One explanation for the seeming paucity of work on distinctly secular ritual is the fact that scholars have found it difficult, if not impossible, to locate any theoretical differences in anthropological approaches to 'religious' and 'secular' rituals respectively (Warburg 2016, Asad 2003). Yet at the same time, ethnographic studies of religious rituals overwhelmingly outnumber those of rituals deemed secular or non-religious, and the question remains whether or not ritual should be approached as a 'neutral' social action that cannot be placed into either a 'religious' or 'secular' category, only being interpreted as religious or secular by participants, and whether there is any value in distinguishing between the two. More recently,

Theorizing Rituals: Vol I: Issues, Topics, Approaches, Concepts, edited by Jens Kreinath, Jan Snoek and Michael Stausberg, xiii–xxv. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2006

It is unclear when rituals first originated. Some assume that ritual, like dance, music, symbolism, and language, arose in the course of the evolution of primates into man, 1 or even prior to it. 2 Thus rituals may also have facilitated, or even stimulated, processes of adaptation. Be that as it may, biologists and behavioral scientists argue that there are rituals among animals, and this has important implications for our understanding of rituals. 3 Unlike animal rituals, however, sometime in the course of the evolution of (human) ritual, and in specific cultural settings, rituals have partly become the business of experts (priests). These ritual specialists, it can safely be assumed, often not only developed a ritual competence in the sense of performative skills but also began to study the rituals of their own tradition. Hence, one may assume that within this process of specialization, social differentiation, and professionalization, 4 indigenous forms of the study of rituals evolved. In contrast to the modern, mainly Western academic study of rituals, these indigenous forms of ritual studies can be referred to as 'ritualistics'. 5 * A first draft of this introduction was written by Michael Stausberg. It was then jointly revised and elaborated upon by the editors of this volume. We wish to thank Ingvild S. Gilhus (Bergen) and Donald Wiebe (Toronto) for helpful comments on a previous draft. 1 See also Bellah 2003. (Here, as throughout the volume, works listed in the annotated bibliography are referred to by author and year only. Those items not listed in the bibliography will be provided with full references in the notes.) 2 Staal 1989, 111 states: "Ritual, after all, is much older than language." See also Burkert 1972. 3 See Baudy in this volume. 4 See Gladigow 2004. 5 See Stausberg 2003. Although a small group of us began using the term at American Academy of Religion meetings, today it has wide currency in a large number of disciplines" (p. 1). See also Grimes 1982 and his bibliography, Research in Ritual Studies (Grimes 1985). In terms of the establishment of a new field of research, see also his article on ritual studies in the Encyclopedia of Religion from 1987. 8 See, e.g., Grimes 1990; Bell 1997. 9 Over the last five years, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Council) funded two large-scale research programs on rituals: Kulturen des Performativen (Sonderforschungsbereich 447 [http://www.sfb-performativ.de] since 1999) and Ritualdynamik (Sonderforschungsbereich 619 [http://www.ritualdynamik.uni-hd.de] since 2002). Some contributors to the current volume are members of the former (Christoph Wulf) or the latter (Dietrich Harth, Axel Michaels, William S. Sax, and Jan A.M. Snoek). 10 The editors themselves were members of a junior research group, Ritualistik

Social Analysis, 48, no. 2: 1-32, 2004

Calvin, who introduces this collection of essays on ritual in its own right, understands ritual as well as many anthropologists. Calvin is dramatizing thematics that I am trying to avoid. Complaining about the peanut butter, spoiled because his mother did not observe the proper ritual for scooping it out, he is telling us: do the ritual correctly. It exists because it has a function-control. Perform control in your ritual, and you will have control in your life. The ritual of how to scoop out peanut butter is a representation of life. Living produces its own symbols, its own reflections, and these are the ritual, existing to enact themes of living-here that of control. The ritual has meaning, otherwise why the argument

Religions

Due to the COVID-19 crisis and the related restrictive measures, many of our (daily) rituals have changed [...]