Abstract
The function of the ritual is to assert a transcendental power over everyday experience and rituals therefore tend to be formalized, repetitive and conservative events. The purpose of this paper is to show the importance for ritual studies of ritualised strategies for the negotiation of power and influence. Here, research on a spirit possession cult among the Muslim Cham in Cambodia will serve as an empirical basis for a discussion of the open-ended and unbounded features of ritual in contemporary society, since the performances of this cult may be seen both as a kind of "state ritual" and as exorcism. Through the cult, the Cham tend to take refuge in their memories of the distant past rather than in their more immediate memories of terror and political violence, during the civil war and the Khmer Rouge regime. Rephrased as songs of the spirits, the present and the past intermingle in narrating the difficulties, the conflicts and the struggle in the world of the spirits who live next to, and mingle in, the world of ordinary human beings.
Highlights
Cathrine Bell's observation that Ritual Studies are emerging as a new academic field indicates that the study of ritual remains a challenge even long after the pioneering works by scholars such as Arnold van Gennep, Edmund Leach, Victor Turner, Mary Douglas and others (Bell 1992: viii)
For instance, Maurice Bloch (1992) finds that ritual action provides an alternative to everyday social action
Following Tambiah's point that ritual always carries the potential for change, recent contributions to ritual studies argue that "ritual plays a crucial rule in practice" (Kelly and Kaplan 1990: 141)
Summary
Cathrine Bell's observation that Ritual Studies are emerging as a new academic field indicates that the study of ritual remains a challenge even long after the pioneering works by scholars such as Arnold van Gennep, Edmund Leach, Victor Turner, Mary Douglas and others (Bell 1992: viii). Practice-oriented approaches in recent contributions to ritual studies (see Mitchell 1996 and Stausberg 2002 for general discussions) suggest a focus on the participants and their different understandings and interpretations of the ritual according to their own points of view. Such a perspective tends to reveal more pragmatic concerns, as well as the inter-contextual relations and complexities in ritual action (cf Steedly 1993: 201). My research on a spirit possession cult among the Muslim Cham in Cambodia* will serve as an empirical basis for a discussion of the open-ended and unbounded features of ritual in contemporary society, since the performances of this cult may be seen both as a kind of "state ritual" and as exorcism
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