Participation In Rituals Research Articles

Narratives of Hospitality and Feeding in Tibetan Ritual

This article proposes that many Tibetan rituals are shaped by a language of creating, giving, and eating food. Drawing on a range of premodern texts and observation of a week-long Accomplishing Medicine (sman sgrub) ritual based on those texts, we explore ritualized food interactions from a narrative perspective. Through the creation, offering, and consumption of food, ritual participants, including Buddhas, deities, and other unseen beings, create and maintain variant identities and relationships with each other. Using a ritual tradition that crosses religious and medical domains in Tibet, we examine how food and eating honors, constructs, and maintains an appropriate and spatiotemporally situated community order with a gastronomic contract familiar to all participants.

The Meaning of Nonviolence: Exploring Nonviolence as a Cultural Resource for Liberal Quaker Subjects

This article reports on eight in-depth interviews conducted with Liberal Quaker subjects in the Boston area. Subjects spoke about two things: their relationship to the peace and nonviolence elements of Quakerism and their personal, spiritual journeys. Subjects tell stories, perform their social positions, and participate (or talk about participation) in communal ritual. I identify nonviolence as a cultural resource used in these processes (storytelling, social position performance, and ritual) to constitute existential meaning. Existential meaning has three different iterations that correspond to the three respective processes. In storytelling, subjects constitute life purpose. In social position performance, subjects constitute subjectivity (who they really are). In communal ritual, subjects constitute solidarity (where they belong). Nonviolence is not the only cultural resource used to constitute these three forms of existential meaning, and is combined in a myriad number of ways to suit the unique exig...

Orchestrating rituals through retailers: An examination of gift registry

We explore the phenomenon of gift registry as a specific ritual within a larger set of wedding rituals to understand interactions between consumers and retailers. We find that roles for retailers in family based rituals are expanding, given how consumers employ brands to negotiate meaning, experiences of identity, and the dispersion of social systems. These changes allow retailers, as ritual orchestrators, an opportunity to participate more fully in the gift registry ritual by shaping the experience for each type of ritual participant—bride, groom, and gift-giver. Our research contributes an interpretation of how consumers negotiate brand meaning within a temporary gift system, as they perform gift giving rituals situated squarely within the marketplace. We explore the implications these rituals have for the construction of identity, consumer-to-consumer and consumer-to-brand relationships. We provide suggestions for managers and directions for future research.

Ritual and acquiescence to authoritative discourse

Scholars have long recognized that participation in collective rituals can dull our capacities for independent thought and critical appraisal while increasing our susceptibility to indoctrination a...

The Dysfunction of Ritual in Early Confucianism by Michael David Kaulana Ing (review)

the Kongzi jiayu (9.9, 15.2). While it may appear in Analects 13.18 that Confucius places family feeling above social justice, Huang argues that in fact there is no dilemma here: the son should conceal the father’s wrongdoing in order to be able to ‘‘gently admonish’’ the father in an atmosphere of family intimacy that will allow the father to take seriously the admonishment and change his ways. Thus the purpose of Confucius’ advice is to preserve both the family relationship and social justice in the long run, by increasing the probability that the father will not commit such crimes in the future. This, in my view, is an excellent solution to the problem, a solution that goes beyond the troubling statement in the Analects and takes into account the broader meanings of filiality. Confucius: A Guide for the Perplexed is true to its title in that it addresses some of the points from classical Confucian thought which can be philosophically troubling. The argumentation not only refers to but engages with an enormous body of literature, ranging from Confucius and Aristotle to Chinese commentators over a span of 2,000 years, and extending to modern and contemporary Chinese and Western philosophers. While it will not take the place of a historical survey of Confucius or Confucianism, I would highly recommend it for any college or university-level class in early Chinese philosophy. JOSEPH A. ADLER Kenyon College MICHAEL DAVID KAULANA ING, The Dysfunction of Ritual in Early Confucianism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. 285 pp. US$35 (pb). ISBN 978-0-19992491 -2 In this work, Michael Ing shows how the Liji 禮記 [Book of Rites] recognizes and explains the fact that rituals sometimes fail to achieve their intended aims (the ‘‘dysfunction of ritual’’). He argues that both preventable and unpreventable failures in rituals are a central concern throughout the Liji and applies ritual theory’s focus on failures of rituals to the cases one finds in early Confucianism, arguing that these Confucian examples can augment our understanding of both Confucian ritual and the nature of ritual generally. Ing carefully specifies his audience: the fields of ritual studies and Confucian ethics (p. 16). He does not offer a comprehensive study of this text nor does he aim to offer an ethnographic account of early Chinese ritual performance (p. 8); rather, he offers a stimulating interpretation of what the Liji and other early Confucian texts say about the issue of ritual failure. In the first of eight chapters, Ing presents the view that, in the Liji, rituals are ‘‘scripted performances enacted by human beings for the purposes of ordering the world’’ (p. 18). He examines different conceptions of ritual in the Liji and introduces his terminology for the different functions of ritual. Interestingly, Ing refers to ritual participants as ritual ‘‘agents,’’ which for most ethicists connotes a more individualistic, autonomous understanding of ritual participants. In chapter 2 he describes ‘‘ritual dysfunction,’’ offering a typology of the different ways in which a ritual can fail to achieve the desired outcome and different BOOK REVIEWS 161 kinds of ritual agents. Readers should use caution here; since the term ‘‘dysfunction’’ (unlike ‘‘failure’’) suggests that something is faulty or abnormal —as opposed to simply incomplete or imperfect—references to ‘‘dysfunctional ’’ rituals may bring to mind something more serious than rituals that sometimes fail to produce the desired outcome. Ing’s primary concern is the Liji’s discussion of ‘‘unpreventable failures in efficacy,’’ or cases in which rituals fail to produce the desired outcome regardless of how good ritual agents are at modifying rituals in different circumstances to ensure their continued success—something he terms ‘‘fluency.’’ Chapter 3 offers a critique of how scholars of Confucian ethics have understood ritual failure. Ing argues that contemporary interpreters of Confucianism tend to erroneously interpret early Confucian views of the junzi 君子 as invulnerable, precluding, for instance, the ‘‘possibility that the virtuous agent might choose a right action but be left with despair, or that he might be confronted with failure and be unable to untangle the agencies involved’’ (p. 77). Instead, Ing argues that early Confucian sages were often deeply anxious and distressed when their rituals...

Reflection as transformation: mirror-image structure on Maya monumental texts as a visual metaphor for ritual participation

In spite of their aberrant orientation, ancient Maya monumental hieroglyphic inscriptions that were carved in mirror-image have been relatively understudied by scholars with respect to the significance of their shared form. Based on examination of eleven such monuments, I propose that mirror-image inscriptions constituted visual metaphors related to the ritual importance of artifactual mirrors as symbols of political and religious power. Furthermore, the metaphorical significance of these texts influenced the viewer’s interpretation of and interaction with the monument. Using evidence from archaeology, epigraphy, iconography, linguistics, and cognitive science, I argue that the mirror-image form, of these monumental inscriptions, extended ritual participation beyond the monument’s protagonist to the ancient Maya viewer through contact with the supernatural. With this work, I hope to begin to fill a significant gap in ancient Maya studies and offer an alternate perspective on the relationship between monumental form and function.

Autobiographical Memory in a Fire-Walking Ritual

Anthropological theories have discussed the efffects of participation in high-arousal rituals in the formation of autobiographical memory; however, precise measurements for such efffects are lacking. In this study, we examined episodic recall among participants in a highly arousing firewalking ritual. To assess arousal, we used heart rate measurements. To assess the dynamics of episodic memories, we obtained reports immediately after the event and two months later. We evaluated memory accuracy from video footage. Immediately after the event, participants’ reports revealed limited recall, low confijidence and high accuracy. Two months later we found more inaccurate memories and higher confijidence. Whereas cognitive theories of ritual have predicted flashbulb memories for highly arousing rituals, we found that memories were strongly suppressed immediately after the event and only later evolved confijidence and detail. Physiological measurements revealed a spectacular discrepancy between actual heart rates and self-reported arousal. This dissociation between subjective reports and objective measurements of arousal is consistent with a cognitive resource depletion model. We argue that expressive suppression may provide a link between individual memories and cultural understandings of high-arousal rituals.

Images from a jointly-arousing collective ritual reveal affective polarization

Collective rituals are biologically ancient and culturally pervasive, yet few studies have quantified their effects on participants. We assessed two plausible models from qualitative anthropology: ritual empathy predicts affective convergence among all ritual participants irrespective of ritual role; rite-of-passage predicts emotional differences, specifically that ritual initiates will express relatively negative valence when compared with non-initiates. To evaluate model predictions, images of participants in a Spanish fire-walking ritual were extracted from video footage and assessed by nine Spanish raters for arousal and valence. Consistent with rite-of-passage predictions, we found that arousal jointly increased for all participants but that valence differed by ritual role: fire-walkers exhibited increasingly positive arousal and increasingly negative valence when compared with passengers. This result offers the first quantified evidence for rite of passage dynamics within a highly arousing collective ritual. Methodologically, we show that surprisingly simple and non-invasive data structures (rated video images) may be combined with methods from evolutionary ecology (Bayesian Generalized Linear Mixed Effects models) to clarify poorly understood dimensions of the human condition.

Involuntary mass spirit possession among the Miskitu

This paper seeks to understand the outbreaks and the development of grisi siknis, a form of mass spirit possession among the Miskitu of north-eastern Nicaragua. Earlier documented outbreaks typically involved a few adolescents, however, in recent years, violent large-scale epidemics have taken place, involving many people of all ages. This has coincided with recent developments in Miskitu society marked by conflicts, contradictions and tense social relations. The anthropological field technique of participant-observation was used. The research took place during 11 months from 2005 to 2008 in the port town of Puerto Cabezas. A total of 38 informants were interviewed. Group discussions, narratives and informal and semi-structured interviews were carried out, as well as participation in healing rituals. The paper shows that socio-economic, cultural, personal as well as environmental factors all contribute to outbreaks of grisi siknis. The affliction has previously been considered a ‘culture-bound syndrome’ only occurring among the Miskitu. However, when viewed in a more contemporary context and cross-cultural perspective, grisi siknis shows similarities with other forms of involuntary mass spirit possession, particularly in the ways it is manifested, experienced and appears to be spreading. The paper argues that the phenomenon should no longer be considered a ‘culture-bound condition’ but in fact a Miskitu version of involuntary mass spirit possession. Further research that seeks to understand other forms of involuntary mass spirit possession should emphasize the social, personal and environmental context as well as cross-cultural comparisons in order to encompass fully the role of culture in relation to illness and suffering.

Religion, group threat and sacred values

AbstractSacred or protected values have important influences on decision making, particularly in the context of intergroup disputes. Thus far, we know little about the process of a value becoming sacred or why one person may be more likely than another to hold a sacred value. We present evidence that participation in religious ritual and perceived threat to the group lead people to be more likely to consider preferences as protected or sacred values. Specifically, three studies carried out with Americans and Palestinians show: (a) that the more people participate in religious ritual the more likely they are to report a preference to be a sacred value (Studies 1–3); (b) that people claim more sacred values when they are reminded of religious ritual (Study 2); and (c) that the effect of religious ritual on the likelihood of holding a sacred value is amplified by the perception of high threat to the in-group (Study 3). We discuss implications of these findings for understanding intergroup conflicts, and suggest avenues for future research into the emergence and spread of sacred values.

Religión y espiritualidad, ¿dos modelos enfrentados?. Trayectorias poscatólicas entre budistas Soka Gakkai

In the context of the privatization of religion, still ongoing, many contemporary religious biographies seem to be motivated by the individual search for a religious alternative far away from the repertoires of beliefs, rituals and institutions of traditional religion. Following the increasing use of this term by many social actors at least since the sixties of the twentieth century, part of the Sociology of Religion has referred to the alternative religiosity as Spirituality (Wood 2009) (Heelas 2008) (McGuire 2008) (Flanagan 2007) (Giordan 2007). The new models of spirituality account both for the decay of traditional forms of religiosity (based on the community of faith, the participation in collective rituals and the congregational identity) and for the spreading of a new spiritual subjectivism, whose high individualism have moved some authors to assert that a reconstitution of collective religiosity is impossible, as Steve Bruce (1996) and Daniele Hervieu-Leger (2003) have argued. This paper tries to explore the possibilities of this theoretical framework analyzing some discourses, discourses and practices of Buddhist converts in Spain, who have previously developed an extensive spiritual ride through several varieties of the so-called New Age milieu, the most important style of religious fragmentation and subjective revolution in the religious fields.

Is the Spiritual Life of Cancer Patients a Resource to be taken into Account by Professional Caregivers from the Time of Diagnosis?

Spiritual life can be defined as the search for personal contact with the transcendent. Careful assessment of spiritual life can help to value its importance to cancer patients from the moment of their diagnosis. This is a cross-sectional study. Two hundred fifty-seven patients undergoing cancer treatment filled in the validated Italian version of the Systems of Belief Inventory (SBI-15R). Patients were also asked to attribute themselves to one of the following, mutually exclusive categories: believer and churchgoer, believer but no churchgoer, and non-believer. Five patients did not report their religious stance and were therefore excluded from the analysis. Of the remaining 252 patients, 49% declared to be believers and churchgoers, 43% believers but not churchgoers, and 8% non-believers. Of the 20 cancer patients who declared not to have a religious faith, 7 patients agreed with the statement that they felt certain that God exists in some form, and 4 had experienced peace of mind through prayer and meditation. Almost all of the patients who declared to have a religious faith and to be churchgoers explicitly affirmed to have been helped by prayer and meditation in coping with their illness. Among believer churchgoers, only 30% declared to seek out the religious or spiritual community when they needed help. A large proportion of cancer patients find themselves involved with the search for a personal contact with the transcendent, also beyond any specific religious affiliation. These spiritual issues may be important even when they are not expressed as participation in religious rituals or adherence to specific religious beliefs. On the other hand, participation in religious rituals often implies the need for a personal spiritual life, both through those rituals and beyond them, as through personal prayer and meditation. These results ask for more attention on the part of professionals towards spiritual resources among cancer patients. It might be appropriate to look systematically for these resources from the moment of the diagnosis, through the sensitive administration of an easy and valid assessment tool like the SBI-15R.

Brief research on Nectar Offering in Tibetan medicine

As a part of the culture of Tibetan medicine, the Nectar Offering has a long history of a thousand year. There are some contents of Esoteric Sect in its ritual procedure. It was improved and established a special theory in the development. On the basic of literature research and investigating the senior inheritors, the contents of ritual procedure, including instrument, participants and procedure, its characteristics and significance were introduced. Nowadays, the culture of Nectar Offering is diluted gradually, and facing the danger of disappearing.

Religionsskiftet i sen vikingetid – Belyst ud fra Harvey Whitehouses teori om religiøse modaliteter

Religionsskiftet i sen vikingetid – Belyst ud fra Harvey Whitehouses teori om religiøse modaliteter

INTERSECTIONS OF WAR TRAUMA, CULTURE, AND SOCIOANALYSIS IN MENTAL HEALTH INTERVENTION FOR POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS

<p class="Default">“Refugee war trauma” is a poor adjunct to post-traumatic stress, lacking context for a civilian survivor of war. The “therapeutic mission”, or consolidating a therapeutic agenda with political reconstitution, has its tensions: Such founders embody politics of “emotionology” (Humphrey, 2005, p. 205) bound largely to pharmaceuticals, from a land of “freedom” (where emphasis is on market) and “democracy” (where emphasis is on autonomy of choice, not accountability). Additionally, how people “cope” or “solve problems” is not universal: Therapy speaks of self-empowerment, self-actualisation, and self-control; reconciliation speaks of collective citizenship, national participation, and group reform. Instituting participation in rituals that ‘help” according to predefined norms of an American prescription to suffering speaks more to the globalisation of the American psyche (Watters, 2010; Venne, 1997) than of humanitarian relief. This paper looks at the absence of cultural and socio-political specificities within the dominant discourse on “war trauma”, that are however of ultimate relevance for people affected by war. Using a case example from my own practice with a Rwandan woman living now in Canada, I question the “helpfulness” of post-traumatic stress treatment with this instance of refugee war trauma, and the impact of power systems in mental health care. How can the therapeutic encounter, given its genesis in Eurocentric, patriarchal, enlightenment thought, pause to better consider its potential for injury, especially within contexts of post-colonial genocide? How to avoid a new “mission to civilise”? What tensions to note as the advent of “trauma counselling” seeks more global application and transnational legitimacy?</p>

Shamans, Nostalgias and the IMF: South Korean Popular Religion in Motion (review)

Laurel Kendall, Shamans, Nostalgias and the IMF: South Korean Popular Religion in Motion. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2009. 251 pp. Shamans, Nostalgias and the IMF demonstrates Laurel Kendall's rigorous and masterful observation that the aboriginal belief system and its practices can serve as lens through which we can see modernity and social life as they continually unfold in South Korea. It is paragon of work written by mature ethnographer having built long-term engagement in the field, in this case in exploration of issues relating to Korean religion and modernity. This book's contribution to both subjects clearly builds upon Kendall's research and publication record from the last three decades. To name few, these publications include Shamans, Housewives, and Other Restless Spirits (1985), The Life and Hard Times of Korean Shaman (1988), Getting Married in Korea: Of Gender, Morality, and Modernity (1996), and Under Construction: The Gendering of Modernity, Class and Consumption in the Republic of Korea (2002). Along with these previous publications on religion specializing in shamanic rituals and modernity with focus on women's worlds and gendered practices, this book continues to articulate the understanding of Korean shamanism as consisting of on-going practices of the present time-not as an icon of feudal past. This understanding comes from her unfailing challenge to the assumption that shamanism represents something fixed and dead, and therefore something not modern. This, in turn, connects to criticism of the dichotomy between tradition and modernity. In this exemplary anthropological work, based on now life-long engagements with the same research participants, it is extremely helpful and intriguing to discover changes in the lives of informants with whom we are already familiar from Kendall's previous work. For example, we again encounter Yongsu's Mother, the key informant shaman from Pine Endurance Village, the ethnographic site featured in Kendall's books in the 1980s. At that time, Yongsu's Mother was novice professional shaman whose narratives and relationship with other women clients reflected the challenge and solidarity set by rural Korean women against patriarchal society rendered particularly so as an impoverished nation still struggling in the aftermath the Korean War. The personal-lifeprogress of this shaman is shown in Kendall's 1990s publication on Korean weddings, which focused on the experience of this shaman as mother of adult children. Yongsu's Mother appears regularly in Shamans, Nostalgias and the IMF, now senior shaman who trains and accompanies other professional shamans in successful shamanic ritual events, and whose life story and shamanic practices have come to represent experiences and practices of semi-urban middle class. The connection between the material affluence of booming Korean economy that has adapted to Western commodification is richly evoked in Kendall's delineation of Yongsu's Mother's narratives that validate the offering (referred to by the participants in these shamanic rituals as the divine appetite ) of Chivas Regal and bananas that takes place as part of current shamanic ceremonies. Readers of Kendall's scholarship will further appreciate her sense of and sensitivity to time-of the duration of its passing and the (critical reflection of) nostalgia that emerges from it-that is crossed in the lives and careers for both research participants and the researcher throughout their longterm relationships. In other words, readers glimpse not only Yongsu's Mother as she advances in life and her career, but also the author's paralleled maturity, revealed in dialectical nostalgic reflection: while resistant to a simple comparison between the materialist present and more innocent time when all of us were younger (131), Kendall candidly reminisces about Korean rural communal life before televisions and automobiles became more prevalent, taking attention away from ritual and personal gatherings. …

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF MIGRATION AND REPUTATION IN KINSHASA

ABSTRACTThis essay presents a history of themikiliste, the high-livingbon vivantwho travels to Europe and is a central figure in Kinois urban mythology. It looks in particular at the highly theatrical exchanges engaged in by themikiliste,which relate especially to music patronage and to designer clothing. I show how these exchanges have evolved over time, both shaping and being shaped by the political economy of Kinshasa. The essay shows how such aesthetic performances should not be discussed in isolation from wider political-economic considerations. Those who participate in economies of prestige must be connected to a material base, and the ruling class, with their access to the resources of the interior, have become ever more important participants in themikilisterituals of largesse. Recently, the violent contestation ofmikilisteexchange, both in Europe and in Kinshasa, indicates that such moments of largesse may be involved in reproducing political-economic relations in the Congolese capital.

Getting Away from It All: The Construction and Management of Temporary Identities on Vacation

When individuals go on vacation they take on a temporary “vacation identity.” Vacationers use props, behaviors, and interactions with traveling companions to define and bound the experience as separate and different from everyday life. Data are drawn from twenty in‐depth interviews and participant observation with sixty international tourists in China during the summer of 2008. Vacationers' participation in rites and routines and impression management techniques helped them construct a personally meaningful, yet short‐lived identity. The results underscore the influence of others in identity construction and point to the importance of a nonpresent other in creating and presenting identities.

Human sacrifice and intentional corpse preservation in the Royal Cemetery of Ur

The Royal Tombs at Ur have been long famous for their chilling scenario of young soldiers and courtesans who loyally took poison to die with their mistress. The authors investigate two of the original skulls with CT scans and propose a procedure no less chilling, but more enforceable. The victims were participants in an elaborate funerary ritual during which they were felled with a sharp instrument, heated, embalmed with mercury, dressed and laid ceremonially in rows.

AFRICAN LOYALISM AND ITS DISCONTENTS: THE ROYAL TOUR OF SOUTH AFRICA, 1947

ABSTRACTThis article explores the late flowering of ‘black loyalism’ during the visit of the British royal family to Southern Africa in the summer of 1947. Whereas most accounts of post-war African politics emphasize the radicalization of political organizations, the growth of nationalism, and grassroots insurgency, this account of African engagement with the royal tour indicates that professed faith in the British monarchy as the embodiment and guardian of the rights and liberties of all peoples living under the crown was more widespread and longer lived than is generally assumed. However evanescent the phenomenon, extensive participation in the ceremonial rituals associated with the tour and the outpouring of expressions of black loyalism underlines the fluidity and unpredictability of black politics in this decade. At such a highly charged moment internationally, with India on the cusp of independence, and political turmoil at home, there was reason to hope that the loyalty of Africans during the Second World War might just be rewarded by the extension of political rights. This article traces the complex legacies and contested expressions of ‘black loyalism’ in what was effectively its swansong.