Ritual performance and the politics of identity: On the functions and uses of ritual (original) (raw)
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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
The nature and function of ritual forms: A sociological discussion
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,
International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage, 2017
Rituals are often used as opportunities for self-reflection and identity construction. The Camino to Santiago de Compostela, which has become a singularly popular pilgrimage since the late 1980s, is an example of a ritual that is explicitly used to gain a deeper understanding of one’s identity through distancing oneself from daily life and creating a space of contemplation. Implicit in this function of rituals in general, and the pilgrimage to Santiago in particular, is the assumption that one is more authentic and closer to one’s true identity during the pilgrimage than one is in daily life. The ritual self, as an idealised identity, functions thus, as a critique of one’s regular cultural identity. This chapter proposes to investigate both the ideal, ritual identity and the implicit critique towards the cultural dynamics that force the pilgrim to ‘not be her/himself’ in daily life.
Mainly employed as domestic workers and care providers since the 1980s, Filipino migrants have been, and still are, largely invisible in Italian public space. Since 1991, once a year, on the last Sunday of May, they transform the streets of Padua, city of Saint Anthony, into their own temporary 'sacred space' celebrating the finding of the Holy Cross (Santa Cruz). Based on ethnographic research and in-depth interviews, the paper analyses the preparation of the ritual and the embodied performance as a means to interpret the Filipino local and transnational territorialisation in the Italian context. The discussion underlines how the Italian setting affects the relationship between the sacred and the secular and between majority and minority religions in the urban texture. Urban space being the symbolic arena where identity and the process of boundary making are inscribed, we consider public space as a social process constituted by three levels: accessibility, temporary appropriation and visibility. Drawing on this immigrant religious ritual, we apply this perspective to look at the interactions between local society and newcomers and the blurring boundaries between religious and non-religious in the ambiguous Italian public space.
International rituals: An analytical framework and its theoretical repertoires
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...
This dissertation examines the function of religious ritual, its significance on the formation of the current socio-political reality and the utilisation of ritual transgression, as a dialectic tool in the works of Hermann Nitsch and Ron Athey. The first chapter, examines ritual, in relation to its transgressive dialectics, using Victor Turner's processual theory, Bataille’s and Foucault's “Trangression” and Artaud's “Theatre of Cruelty”. The second chapter, uses the texts of Giorgio Agamben and Carl Schmitt, to approach ritual as a function that sustains and perpetuates the set structures of the society the artists live in. Particularly, the inquiry explores the relation between the Christian Ritual, and the ways it came, through its politicization to define the structure of the Capitalist system. Finally, the third chapter, examines the signification of ritual transgressions in Nitsch's and Athey's work, in relation to the socio-political background that shaped their experiences.
East-Timor
Community ritual practices are an exceptional opportunity to analyse how ideology and practice of identity are worked out by local actors, namely through narratives of origin which stand as an example of identity and denial of peripheral position as often depicted from a hegemonic centre that seems to devaluate the historical process of local entities. Community ritual practices are important as cultural heritage but also as social and ritual markers of distinction and identity. It seems that their value as "national building" tools are relegated to the sphere of folklore and used in specific times of State or Church agenda, legitimating, above all, these two entities. Nevertheless, for local communities ritual practices are seen as resources not only in local contexts but also for the nation.
Rituals and Festivals: The Tools of Social Control
Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (JETIR), 2018
Rituals and festivals are tools of social control that were engineered long ago through different aspects of games and play to achieve specific social goals. Games, which are leisure time activities are also made part of some rituals which signify a planned sanction of relaxation from the social control which again has specific social goals. Rituals are energized with legends that are connected to the aspects of divinity religiously to add the dimension of sanctity and are practiced across generations by connecting them to cosmic schedules. The need to institutionalize the desired social rules was perhaps recognized quite long ago when the cultures began to emerge and solidify in terms of customs and traditions. Systems of control that could have both intrinsic and extrinsic influences on the individuals through guilt and shame attributes are analyzed in this paper in the context of rituals, festivals and the related cultural aspects.