Ritual in an Unstable World: Introduction

Caste and Equality in India, 2021

Chapter 8 depicts and analyses the festival of the local goddess, Rāmacaṇḍī. I suggest that we can identify potential cultural resources in the ritual that provide the foundations of people’s moral–ethical agency for overcoming the postcolonial predicament. The ritual goes through three phases: (a) the arrival of the goddess’s power from the forest into the fort-village through the tribal medium, which manifests the value of ontological equality; (b) the union of the divine power with the royal authority mediated by the brāhmaṇa priest, which affirms the value of hierarchy; and (c) the consumption of the product of the union in the form of sacrificial meat, which represents the value of the centrality of power. I argue that this ritual can be seen as an enactment of the sacrificial drama of regeneration, where the three values and social configurations of ‘equality’, ‘hierarchy’ and ‘centrality’ unfold and interact to reproduce the community. The three phases of the ritual represent ‘revolving values’ which are legitimate, plural and multifaceted cultural resources utilised by the people to valorise their existence as well as their social practices. This chapter also analyses how the ritual form and the structure of patronage changed historically (‘ritual in history’) and how the ritual invokes historical memory in the form of myths, legends and family narratives (‘history in ritual’). The ritual can be said to be a representation of local history not in terms of linear transformation but of an accumulation of the past: tribals worshipping the goddess, the gradual migration of peasant-warriors and other caste members into the area, the chief challenging and being defeated by the medium/goddess, royal patronage of the goddess in the form of royal sacrifice, the introduction of the new rich as new patrons of the ritual during the colonial era etc. The entanglement of history and ritual enable the people to reflect upon their past and present. This has the effect of not only legitimising the status and power of the upper castes but also unsettling their hegemony by calling into question the prevailing practices. In the postcolonial situation, there is, on the one hand, the hegemonic attempt by the old and new elites to ritually assert the colonially constructed structure of status and power and, on the other hand, also the subaltern attempts to emphasise the importance of devotion and service, thus placing weight on ontological equality in the face of divine power. It is noteworthy that, in the ritual, there is an increasing number of people making offerings individually and approaching the medium/goddess directly on the hill outside the village. Also, the medium/goddess now enters every house, instead of a chosen few as in the past, to bless family members, particularly married women who cannot come out in public. These changes suggest that more emphasis is now placed on the devotion and service of individuals and direct ties and contact with the goddess. Here, we observe dilemma and contestation between the superalternate values of hierarchy and centrality and the subalternate value of ontological equality. In this way, the ritual not only leads to the reproduction of the structure of status and power, but also illustrates the potential of subaltern resistance against the hegemonic structure.

Homiletic, 2012

Travel to a foreign country provides opportunities, sometimes frustrating and other times enjoyable, to discover and experience different languages, cultures, and social and religious rituals. We learn not only about other people, we also gain new insights and clarity about ourselves. When we read books that lie outside our areas of expertise, new vistas appear, which can deepen and enrich our own discipline. Brosius and Polit's edited work is a double journey, intellectual and cultural. In this edited collection, scholars interested in cultural anthropology engage questions of identity, culture, ritual, and politics given a globalized, postmodern world, relying mostly on illustrations taken from the India's diverse and rich society. The journey begins with an observation that in an increasingly globalized world, ritualized performances "are not clearly tied to and defined via national territories and identities." (2) Moreover, the book, the editors note, is a response to the tendency of UNESCO to treat rituals as heritage and the political and societal implications for doing so. The authors raise new questions about ritual and heritage and their relation to politics, power, and commodification of rituals. Questions arise, as well, about the relation between ritual and communal and social identity, especially given the movement within and between nations or groups of people and their respective cultures. What are the social and communal functions of rituals? How are rituals related to heritage-a creative process of individual and group imagination conveying intangible meanings? (21) What is the relationship between ritual and culture, given the fluidity of movement between and among groups in a pluralistic society? Who owns ritual performances? The authors of these intriguing chapters take pains to define ritual, heritage, and identity as they take up these and other questions from the perspective of cultural anthropology and the laboratory of Indian society. There are always reluctant travelers who must be given good reasons to embark. I believe this may be true of some readers who are ensconced in their own traditions and rituals. A detailed review of the various chapters of the book may provide people with enough information to entice them to read it, but space limitations make this approach impossible. Instead, I suggest several benefits one may obtain in reading this book and, if not the whole book, various chapters that spark one's interest. Let me first note that, as ministers and seminary professors, religious rituals and the Judeo-Christian traditions are our bread and butter. We recognize that the practice of our rituals and heritage provide the basis for religious identity and community in a society that is increasingly complex, varied, and secular. One benefit of this book is that it provides clear definitions and illustrates how concepts such as ritual and heritage are integral to individual, social, and communal identity. Another important advantage of this book is that it shifts our perspective, helping us to see the growing impact of globalization vis-à-vis our own religious heritages and "performances" of ritual. Many ethnically rooted Christian denominations in the U.S. are losing members, suggesting that some of our religious rituals and heritages may be slowly moving to museum status. The loss of members for some may be gain for others. Brosius and Polit's book also provides a way of thinking about cultural fluidity and changes vis-à-vis those cultural and religious rituals that become moribund, while others gain in importance. A related benefit of this book is its addressing how macro variables such as political and economic systems, can both shape ritual performances, as well as undermine them. Put differently, there are occasions when

Review of International Studies, 2021

The performance of ritual and the ritualisation of performance are the two main theoretical repertoires of ritual study in international politics and beyond. However, they also escalate tensions between those who insist on ritual's ability to operate by virtue of participants’ presence and those who believe that global networks of media call for a representational turn, which must tie participants and audiences across borders. Should we fail to understand how these distinct theoretical repertoires interact, it would be difficult to study international ritual, identify its functions, and trace its effects. Anchored in the sociology of ‘social occasions’, this article weaves ritual's patterns, properties, and resources into a coherent analytical framework. The framework enables us to better to grasp how actors move between/within different worlds (ritual and performance) and to what effects. The comparative study of two post-terrorism ritual occasions (the 2011 Rose March in O...

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,

Emerging Ritual in Secular Societies. A Transdisciplinary Conversation, 2017

Attached: Introduction, Notes on Contributors. This collection of articles is a thoughtful examination of the history, function and place of emerging rituals. The discussion goes beyond academic assessment and acknowledgement of the absence of meaningful ritual to focus on the different ways people are responding to the call for ‘new rituals’. It recognises the extent to which sincere ritualisation is essential to the physical, psychological and spiritual health of individuals, family groups, organisations and even society as a whole. Contributors: 13 authors, 15 transdisciplinary fields: - Ellen Dissanayake, hon. PhD, an independent scholar focusing on 'the anthropological exploration of art and culture’. Seattle, Washington, USA - Matthieu Smyth, PhD, Ritual Anthropologist, Professor at the University of Strasbourg. - Robert C. Scaer, M.D., Neurologist, Psychologist, currently retired from clinical medical practice. Louisville, Colorado, USA. - Jeltje Gordon-Lennox, M.Div, Psychotherapist and Celebrant Trainer, Ashoka Association, Geneva, Switzerland. - Andrés Allemand Smaller, journalist and secular celebrant in Geneva, Switzerland. - Christine Behrend, marketing and consumer behaviour researcher and a secular celebrant in Pully, Switzerland. - Isabel Russo, Head of Ceremonies at The British Humanist Association, London, UK. - Michael Picucci, PhD, Psychologist, licensed psychotherapist, New York City, USA. - Joanna Wojtkowiak, PhD, Cultural psychologist, Assistant professor at the University of Humanistic Studies, Utrecht, The Netherlands. - Lindy Mechefske, journalist and food-writer in Kingston, Canada. - Irene Stengs, PhD, Cultural Anthropologist, Senior Researcher Fellow at the Meertens Instituut, Co-editor of Anthropological Journal Etnofoor, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. - Gianpiero Vincenzo, MA, sociologist, islamist, art critic and novelist; Professor of sociology at the Fine Arts Academy of Catania in Sicily, Italy. - Jacqueline Millner, PhD, is Associate Dean Research, Sydney College of the Arts, The University of Sydney - Ida van der Lee, ritual artist, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Publication date: early 2017

Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2003

Ethnos, 2019

That rituals are ambiguous phenomena has been long established in anthropology. However, while this ambiguity is often assumed to be resolved in one way or another through the course of a ritual and taken as contributing to the efficacy of rituals, we propose in this introduction that much can be gained by studying ritual ambiguity apart from its relevance for efficacy. We argue that while rituals often depend on and helps create a sense of ambiguity, this ambiguity is far from always resolved. Rituals can instead highlight and intensify ambiguity, making it an enduring feature. While rituals often are seen as potential problem solvers, by participants and many anthropologists alike, we argue that much can be gained by look at rituals as highly problematic phenomena.

A small study on how people perceived ritual that manifest through their behavior. The way of people think and behave are affected by changes such as development through cash crop and Christianity, for example. This small research took place in Bau, Sarawak.

Within the scope of EU Erasmus Intensive Programs 2012-2013, the aim of this project was to re-interpret cultural rituals, together with the cultural dimensions of different communities, within the context of the design field. The notion of culture is understood to be continuously moving and changing, developing itself dynamically via the encounter between differences and similarities. The focus of the project was on rituals that play a significant part in everyday life and are formed and reformed with the norms of modern daily life. In other words, the traditional structures evoked by the word 'ritual'-and taking ritual as a frozen entity in time and place-are being avoided. Accordingly, due to the understanding that takes culture as a dynamic content and form at the core of the project, the ritual approach was concentrated on how rituals have been changing with the norms of modern life and how new rituals are created due to the dynamics of modern life. This dynamic understanding of culture is a relatively recent approach within the scope of sociology and anthropology. Within the framework of existing dynamics of modern life, the possibilities of expressing and living identities and differences are getting more and more perplexing and multi-faceted each day. In addition, today, identity politics is on the agenda of discussions and experiments at multiple levels. In this respect, apart from its focus, the significance of this project is also visible due to the very multicultural and diverse educational backgrounds of the workshop team: the workshop was not only conducted by participants from the Netherlands, Belgium and Turkey, but students from Jordan, Iran and Ecuador were also involved. Thus, both with its multicultural structure and focus, this project was about re-interpreting the cultural differences and similarities of rituals through a cross-and multi-cultural perspective. Within this project we look at culture in an active way. We move from the old idea of culture as a 'thing-in-itself', challenging the static understanding of culture, to the new idea of culture as a continuous and active process of meaning making. (Wright, 1998, p.12) Culture, in both its old and new senses, has been introduced into many new domains in the 1980s and 1990s, including cultural racism and multiculturalism, corporate culture, culture and development, and many others. As anthropologists like Susan Wright have argued for many years: cultural identities are not bounded or static. They are dynamic, fluid and constructed in particular places and times. Theoretical developments in cultural studies and in post-structural anthropology, have led us to understand that 'cultures' are not, nor ever were, naturally bounded entities. (Wright, 1998, p. 9) * The workshop was conducted at the METU Department of Industrial Design, Ankara, between April 1 and April 14, 2013 with the participation of 14 students and 3 instructors from METU Department of Industrial Design Master's Programme, 7 students and 3 instructors from TU/e Department of Industrial Design Master's Programme, and 3 students and 2 instructors from LUCA/campus Brussels Social Design Master's Programme. As a result of the workshop, 5 different projects produced by 5 groups of students were exhibited at the METU Faculty of Architecture between April 10 and 13, 2013. We like to thank all the students who participated to this project, together with their coaches from METU, TU/e and LUCA Brussels. We especially would like to thank Banaz Palani and the students joining and developing the 'Welcome' group. † Johanna Kint is researcher & coach at

Culture & Psychology, 2018

Rituals are argued to be transformative in the literature. However, a psychological understanding of transformative ritual has been lacking. Moreover, in contemporary society, meaning-making processes are more complex and uncertain, and the practice of ritualising leads to more individualised and dynamic rituals. This article explores the question how to understand ritual transformation from a psychological perspective. In this theoretical review, insights from ritual studies are combined with psychological theories to build a theoretical framework on ritual transformation. Ritual is found to be transformative in terms of (1) aesthetic distance, (2) structured performance and (3) social collaboration. Ritual is considered in this article to be a culturally scripted event that cultivates emotions and thoughts through symbolic action in a social setting. The article ends with suggestions on how to study this framework in future empirical research.