RITUEL INTERAKTION OG ILLUSION: En relationel tilgang

Abstract

By providing an explicitly formal account of
 three ethnographic examples – the Naven rite
 of the Iatmul (Papua New Guinea),
 Amerindian shamanism as illustrated by the
 Kuna (Panama), and African male initiation
 among the Wagania (Democratic Republic of
 Congo) – the authors outline a “relational”
 approach to the analysis of ritual action.
 They suggest that the illusion implied by the
 effectiveness of ritual action derives not
 from the inherent nature of the items of
 behaviour involved, but from the particular
 kind of internal consistency that is imposed
 by the interactive context in which they
 occur. Thus, the singular realities constructed
 through ritual performances are built up
 and sustained, neither by their functional or
 semantic properties nor by their syntactic
 features (for example repetition or
 fragmentation), nor by qualities depending
 on pragmatic considerations (performativity,
 staging procedures, etc.). Rather, they are
 constructed primarily by the establishment
 of a particular type of relational configuration.