Ritual Economy Research Articles

“What Do They Say in Mosques? Islamic Discourse on Limiting Ritual Expenses”

This article examines the changes in religious policy, Islamic beliefs, religious life, national values, and family rituals in Uzbekistan during the years of independence. Particularly, it analyzes a series of fatwas, guidelines, and theses on Friday prayer topics published by the Office of Muslims of Uzbekistan in recent years. The author substantiates the amalgamation of religious and national perspectives in Uzbek family rituals, encompassing childbirth, marriage, and mourning ceremonies, drawing on ethnographic materials. Furthermore, it delves into the views of Islamic scholars and imams concerning the reduction of specific expenses and extravagances in these rituals, citing examples from Friday prayers and various social networks. Through anthropological observations of modern Uzbek society, including Muslims' public activities, Friday prayers, neighborhoods, and community events, as well as through various TV talk shows and radio broadcasts, the article explores "Aqiqa" ceremonies, circumcision weddings, marriages, and mourning rituals conducted by Uzbek imams in matters of family and marriage. The author highlights the discussions of "Amru Ma'ruf" topics during ceremonies, widely debated on mosque websites, imams' pages, and social media platforms (Telegram, Facebook, Instagram). The article underscores the impact of Islamic scholars' and imams' ongoing efforts, noting changes in the balance of expenses in the ceremonial life of the Uzbek people, particularly evident in marriage ceremonies. Moreover, it analyzes changes and transformative processes in Uzbek family rituals from the perspective of ritual economy.

Spiritual Pawning: “Mad Slaves” and Mental Healing in Atlantic-Era West Africa

AbstractWhen enslaved people became “mad,” they lost exchange value as labor capital on the Atlantic market, as neither African nor European merchants considered the mentally distressed to be valuable bondsmen. Historians of slavery in the Americas have drawn on accounts of “mad slaves” to understand how labor value was generated, and disrupted, through the transport and sale of captive Africans. But historians have yet to examine the relationship between psychological distress and enslavement in West Africa, where many of the captives in question originated. This article opens a research agenda on madness in Atlantic-era West Africa through a case study of the role of Ga shrines as spaces of mental healing in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Gold Coast, today’s coastal Ghana. Ga families confided their mentally distressed kin to shrine priests, who treated severe illnesses caused by ritual afflictions. When shrine priests healed these ailments, they engaged in spiritual pawning: converting mad persons, deemed unfit for sale due to mental incapacity, into potential subjects of enslavement. West African shrines were thus spaces of value conversion that reflected a broader monetary and ritual economy of capture, enslavement, and raiding that proliferated on the Gold Coast.

Between the Tibetan Plateau and Eastern China—Religious Tourism, Lay Practice and Ritual Economy during the Pandemic

This article presents various institutional responses of Buddhist groups and leaders to COVID-19, adding a focus on how Tibetan Buddhist practitioners in China have responded to the pandemic. In particular, it examines the predicament of practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism. The article focuses on the material characteristics of Tibetan Buddhism and how they were manifested among Han Chinese urbanites during the pandemic through (1) a teleological inquiry, which looks into the concept of merit (sk: puñña, ch: gongde) 功德, and (2) an organizational inquiry, which explores the modalities in which Han Chinese groups practice Tibetan Buddhism in the socio-political sphere of the Chinese state. Within this inquiry, the article deals with a Buddhist community based in Shanghai and an individual account of pilgrimage in Tibet. Based on these two case studies and their contextualization, the article aims to assess how the COVID-19 crisis has affected the practices, modalities and religious technologies of Tibetan Buddhism practiced by Han Chinese. The article argues for a degree of resilience of lay practice in Tibetan Buddhism; it stresses that while some aspects of the practice called for accommodations and change, the particularities of the practice have pre-existing conditions (such as state regulation on religion and the physical distance of their religious authority) which could accommodate the practical, sociological and psychological implications of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bleached broilers and divine fowls: The ritual economy of chickens in a South Indian city

Commercial poultry operations are booming as demand for chicken soars in 21st‐century India. The industry relies on the models familiar from industrial countries: birds pumped with growth hormones and antibiotics designed to ensure rapid, standardized egg production and broiler meat. Nevertheless, during my fieldwork in India, locals insisted that broiler chickens were rarely used for ritual purposes. They explained that the gods were far more discerning and should only be offered the ‘country chicken’ (Natu kodi). The distinctive appearance of these ‘rural’ birds was seen to make them appropriate for ritual sacrifices, with transformative potential. Even urban dwellers seemed to prefer these much costlier indigenous birds – untouched by the homogenizing logic of industrial livestock production – especially for rituals. As I show in this essay, the ritual economy of chickens illustrates the process of ‘metabolic’ transformations, toxic entanglements and more‐than‐human encounters, as much as it reveals that of mutualism, with its vital and varied meanings tied to social relations and ecological sensibilities.

:Re-Enchanting Modernity: Ritual Economy and Society in Wenzhou, China

Previous articleNext article No AccessReviewsRe-Enchanting Modernity: Ritual Economy and Society in Wenzhou, China, by Mayfair Yang. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2020. x+374 pp. US$109.95 (cloth), US$29.95 (paper).David A. PalmerDavid A. PalmerUniversity of Hong Kong Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The China Journal Volume 89January 2023 Published on behalf of the Australian Centre on China in the World at the Australian National University Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/722854 Views: 6Total views on this site For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

The rise of idiôtês: Micro-politics of death and community reproduction in Bronze Age Hungary

• Applying ritual economy approach to assess funerals as active and political arena. • Middle-range theory to recover material signatures of micro-political discourse. • Bridging micro-politics at funerals and broad historical transformations. • Micro-politics of death providing a new agent-centered historical narrative. The Hungarian Bronze Age witnessed rapid sociopolitical transformation during the 16th century BCE as large communities scattered across the landscape, most long inhabited tell-settlements were reorganized, and centuries-old cemeteries were abandoned. Historical change on this scale is often perceived as a single, momentous episode elusive in the process, but visceral and consequential in its effect. This study develops a multiscalar approach to recover unfolding sequences of actions that led to such fundamental transformation of Bronze Age society. Examining material assemblages of five cemeteries in central Hungary, I explore the ways broadening economic activities, and increasing importance and control of bronze led to changing interpersonal relations and finally to disarticulation of communities. The study integrates a series of theoretical concepts to develop a middle-range theory of mortuary practice. This approach can recover material signatures of micro-political discourse during singular funerary occasions illuminating processes behind the transformation of Bronze Age society.

Ritual Economy, or How Much Is Spent on A Wedding in Central Asia

The article describes the rituals that form a complex of wedding traditions in the countries of Central Asia. We are talking about rites (pre-wedding, wedding and post-wedding) and related expenses. Observance of traditions imposes heavy financial obligations on the families of the bride and groom, driving them into credit burden and depriving them of economic well-being for many years. Why do families participate in this wasteful excess? What drives them? The article focuses on decoding the institute of Central Asian wedding. The article is based on interviews with students from Central Asian countries studying in Moscow. Arrival in Moscow indicates a willingness to accept values conventionally called "Western". Representatives of the westernized youth critically evaluate the economy of weddings, seeing no sense in following traditions that condemn families to excessive waste. In their opinion, the reproduction of the ritual economy is supported by public opinion and is based on the fear of the family to spoil the reputation. The wedding turns into an act of demonstrative generosity, which confirms the social status of families.Students reconstruct the logic of parents in terms of being forced to follow certain rules under vigilant social control: the rule of the reciprocal exchange of gifts; demonstration of social status and maintaining the prestige of the family; competition between the families of the bride and groom; confirmation of membership in a related clan; showing loyalty within the official hierarchy, investing in a career. Despite the legislative restrictions on the scale of weddings adopted in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan no impressive results have been achieved. The discrepancy between social expectations threaten to turn into reputational losses. People continue to pay tribute to the requirements of the ritual economy, going to all sorts of tricks in order not to fall under the sanctions of the state

Can Pollution Bring Balance to the Hidden Land?

Cham, a distinctive masked ritual dance, is undertaken biannually at Pemayangtse Monastery, a Buddhist institution in Sikkim, a Himalayan state in northeast India. These ritual performances are intended to dispel negative forces and create the conditions of prosperity and health for all of the beings – including humans, spirits and deities – resident in Sikkim’s sacred landscape and throughout the cosmos. The efficacy of ritual dances is intertwined with the context of the performances and the materiality of the dancers’ costumes. This article will engage debates over cham’s changing materiality. In particular, it will focus on the recent introduction of fibreglass masks in Pemayangtse’s ritual dances to explore connections between changing ecologies, notions of toxicity and pollution and ritual economies in Sikkim. While Buddhist authorities express anxiety about the substances involved in creating fibreglass, they also appreciate its affordability and durability. Artists who work in fibreglass see the material as a fast way to work. The dancers, on the other hand, express concern about how changes in the physicality of dancing with these masks may interfere with ritual efficacy. These debates are illustrative of broader concerns about the impact of changing ecosystems on interdimensional relations in the Himalayas.

FOCAL NODES AND RITUAL ECONOMY IN ANCIENT MAYA HINTERLAND COMMUNITIES: A CASE STUDY FROM SAN LORENZO, BELIZE

AbstractPublic structures in the Maya region materialize ideologies and define centers of power as they create politically charged sacred landscapes. These locations are focal nodes for community and polity making processes, embedding social hierarchies, ideologies, and social memories into the physical landscape. Archaeologists, however, have historically focused little attention on small-scale focal nodes within rural communities. To explore the ways hinterland or rural communities may integrate and articulate with larger heartland seats of power, this article examines one such public group at the hinterland site of San Lorenzo, Belize. Drawing from studies of integrative features, we explore practices of affiliation from the Late Preclassic through the Terminal Classic periods and the ways they are expressed at a civic-ceremonial community space through ritual economy. Focal nodes facilitated the face-to-face interactions that were necessary for community integration and the practices enacted within such spaces allow associated groups to negotiate and display their status within the community and to larger regional polities.

Re-enchanting Modernity: Ritual Economy and Society in Wenzhou, China. By Mayfair Yang

Re-enchanting Modernity: Ritual Economy and Society in Wenzhou, China. By Mayfair Yang

Mayfair Mei-Hui Yang, Re-enchanting Modernity. Ritual Economy and Society in Wenzhou, China

Mayfair Mei-Hui Yang, Re-enchanting Modernity. Ritual Economy and Society in Wenzhou, China

Re-enchanting Modernity: Ritual Economy and Society in Wenzhou, China, written by Mayfair Yang

Re-enchanting Modernity: Ritual Economy and Society in Wenzhou, China, written by Mayfair Yang

Angkorian Khmer stoneware: production and provenance

From ∼ 900 to 1450 CE the Angkorian Khmer state extended control over much of inland Southeast Asia. This economically complex polity supported a large number and a diverse range of specialist producers across its territory. Given the limited types of textual data, our understanding of the Angkorian Khmer economy is heavily reliant on archaeological data to address key issues such as the relationship between specialist producers and the Angkorian elite. Here our focus is on the production side of this question through elemental characterization (Neutron Activation Analysis) of a large sample of high temperature ceramics - stonewares - from 15 Angkorian Khmer complexes in Cambodia and Thailand. In the majority of cases we can identify kiln-specific compositional signatures as the groundwork for the next stage of analysis: studying the consumption-side dynamics of Angkorian stoneware distribution. The study also highlights the spatial resolution of stoneware NAA possible in this context. Together, defining patterns of stoneware production, distribution and consumption will allow a new bottom-up perspective on the operation of the Angkorian Khmer political and ritual economy.

Digitizing death: commodification of joss paper on Chinese online cemetery

ABSTRACT This article explores the digitalization of traditional funeral joss paper into digital commodities through the case study of the Chinese online cemetery 00tang.com. Joss paper are paper replicas of everyday items such as money and objects that are ritually burned as a form of symbolic offering to the deceased in accordance with traditional Chinese practices of ancestor worship. Using both ethnographic interviews and discursive interface analysis, I look at how the remediation of spiritual joss paper into digital objects complicates perceived dichotomy between the gift and commodity that requires new ways of thinking about the acts of social reciprocity, indebtedness, and obligation. Drawing on established literature relating to gift and digital economies, I argue 00tang’s digitization of joss paper on internet cemeteries is reflexive of the biopolitical means by which the state and market forces work to subsume traditional ancestor worship into controllable and commodifiable labor of mourning. Here, the subversive wastefulness of the gift is replaced by its accumulation and preservation online. Digitization in this regard highlights the process by which objects take on different materiality, values, aesthetics, and productive labor practices, all of which fundamentally alters the symbolic regimes of death and the ritual gift economy in China.

De/Colonizing Hijra

De/Colonizing <i>Hijra</i>

On face masks as buddhist merit: Buddhist responses to covid-19. a case study of tibetan buddhism in shanghai

The global media has reported various institutional responses of Buddhism to COVID-19. This paper offers a look at the grassroots of Buddhist religious activity in response to the pandemic, examining its impact on lay Buddhist followers of the Nyingmapa Buddhist tradition in Shanghai. The paper relates the activity of this group of lay adepts vis-a-vis COVID-19 to the material characteristics of Tibetan Buddhism, and how they manifest in the Han Chinese urban environment. Exploring the concept of merit, the paper argues how religious responses to the pandemic act as components in contemporary China's ritual economy .

Angkorian Khmer Stoneware: Production and Provenance

From ~900 to 1450 CE the Angkorian Khmer state extended control over much of inland Southeast Asia. This economically complex polity supported a large number and a diverse range of specialist producers across its territory. Given the limited types of textual data, our understanding of the Angkorian Khmer economy is heavily reliant on appropriate archaeological data to address key issues such as the relationship between specialist producers and the Angkorian elite. Here we address the production side of this question through elemental characterization (Neutron Activation Analysis) of a large sample of high temperature ceramics - stonewares - (~1000) from 15 Angkorian Khmer complexes in Cambodia and Thailand. In the majority of cases we can identify kiln-specific compositional signatures as the groundwork for the next stage of analysis: studying the consumption-side dynamics of Angkorian stoneware distribution. The study also highlights the spatial resolution of stoneware NAA possible in this context. Together, defining patterns of stoneware production, distribution and consumption will allow a new bottom-up perspective on the operation of the Angkorian Khmer political and ritual economy.

Diachronic change in the Shang dynasty ritual package

The ritual system of China’s Late Shang dynasty is commonly described as ‘mature’ in Mainland Chinese scholarship, meaning that the leading role of bronze vessels in ancestral rites is recognisably similar to the practices of later dynasties. Such an assumption depicts ritual artefacts—particularly those from mortuary contexts—from the Early and Middle Shang periods as precursors to the Late Shang ones in a predictable evolutionary framework. This paper examines changes in the use of ceramic and bronze across the Shang period, showing that ceramics—specifically proto-porcelain and hard pottery—played more of a key role in Early and Middle Shang ritual, though the types of vessels required were not yet strictly formalised. By contrast, the huge number of bronzes in the Late Shang corresponds to an apparent emphasis on quantity and conspicuous consumption in a ritual economy. This occurred despite the Late Shang’s theoretical loss of territory in the west and south, which necessitated exchange networks with neighbouring polities, particularly those south of the Central Plains, be adapted.

Intensification revisited: assessing resource specialization at Crystal River (8CI1) and Roberts Island (8CI41), Florida

ABSTRACT Archaeologists typically associate resource intensification with population expansion, environmental change, and political strategizing. Many Late Woodland and Mississippian societies of the Southeast eschewed dietary diversity in favor of harvesting fewer types of resources that could meet the subsistence demands of incipient aggregation. Foods such as maize and shellfish can provide humans with predictable caloric yields and are amenable to control by individuals or corporate groups. However, some archaeologists have identified scenarios in which small-scale societies intensified resources in the absence of population growth and social inequality. Ritual economies can periodically place high demands on the materials used for gatherings and ceremonies. These events then may leave material residues of economic intensification, which archaeologists might easily mistake as evidence for population expansion or social evolution. We use diversity and equitability estimates of zooarchaeological deposits from Crystal River (8CI1) and Roberts Island (8CI41), Florida, to demonstrate that some Woodland period societies periodically intensified their use of resources amidst population decline and heightened ritual activity. We suggest that the inhabitants of the area harvested shellfish at increasingly high rates to provide the material basis for a series of ritual interventions that aimed to circumvent the effects of rapid social and ecological change.

Religious Faith as Cultural Heritage at the Refuge for World Truths

Faith undergirds the Refuge for World Truths, a multireligious heritage-scape that emerged out of an old Spanish land grant adjacent to the Wild West mining and ranching town of Crestone, Colorado. Established by an entrepreneurial husband-and-wife team in the late twentieth century, the Refuge’s spiritual centers were founded upon different faith commitments. Christian, [Sufi] Muslim, and Baha’i centers adhere to a monotheistic faith and claim divine revelation as the source of their presence in the Refuge. New Age, polytheistic, and nontheistic groups base their faith claim on the personal mystical revelations of “Glenn,” a local peripatetic and self-described prophet who hailed the arrival of the original couple. Two stints of ethnographic research point to the spiritual centers’ public ritual performances as both invitations to pilgrims to intensify this faith and as functional cogs in the integration and continuity of the heritage-scape’s ritual economy. Finally, the faith expressions underlying the Refuge for World Truths allow this unique locality to champion interreligious dialogue as a method for addressing diversity and negotiating potential onsite conflict on the path to peaceful mutuality.