Ritual Events Research Articles

TARI KERAWUHAN DI BALI : SANGHYANG DEDARI SEBUAH KAJIAN SOSIAL

Dance kerawuhan (trance dance) is one of permorming art for the ritual event who stile a life in Bali. Sanghyang Dedari dance for its example, and used by Balinese society to ritual dance. Now that ritual art changed to be performance for tourisme.Key word: trance, wali, Sanghyang Dedari.

‘Living to the rhythm of the city’: internationalisation of universities and tourism discourse in Catalonia

ABSTRACTThis paper explores the impact of the tourism discourse on the self-representation strategies that a university in Catalonia adopts towards international students, and the extent to which these strategies connect with the stance of international students towards their study-abroad experience. The data were ethnographically collected during the academic year 2010–2011 and are analysed following a Content Analysis approach to explore how the university and international students project their perspectives on Catalan. The results show that the commodification of the Catalan language and culture is not only a strategy to increase the value of the university and recruit students, but also represents a way of projecting the Catalan national identity in a post-national era. This is not always accepted by the students, especially at the beginning of their stay, as they, like tourists, expect the host community to limit the use of the local language to specific and ritualised events and to adopt Spanish or English in interactions with them.

“…And that’s why I Teach For America”: American education reform and the role of redemptive stories

AbstractThis article interrogates the discursive relationship between school reform and redemption in the United States by examining the personal narratives of Teach For America corps members. After tracing the history of Teach For America and describing the rites of passage in which teachers’ “redemptive stories” are told, I analyze the generic arc that underlies them and show that it mirrors broader processes of in-group socialization. In doing so, I argue that Teach For America’s brand of redemptive storytelling – in addition to crafting individual identity, contributing to group cohesion, and enlivening performance at ritualized events – also affects organizational authority. As corps members master their stories of reform and redemption, paralleling the path to becoming “master teachers,” they participate in a process of “becoming” that reproduces in micro-scale the maturation of Teach For America. More profoundly, these transformations represent a distinct response to traditions of American confessional storytelling and the accountability-based education movement. Redemptive stories thus bind the socialization of the individual reformer to issues afoot more broadly in the province of education policy.

Ritual Reconstructed Project, 2014–2015

Ritual Reconstructed Project, 2014–2015 Searle Kochberg (bio) End of Project Event, JW3 (Jewish Community Centre, London, UK), November 24, 2015. Funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. In The Savage Mind1 Claude Lévi-Strauss explains how mythological thought and rites are continuously broken down and rebuilt again through new constructions of already existing sets of events, and how rituals serve to bring unity to previously separate groups. This makes ritual particularly fertile ground for bricolage—Lévi-Strauss’s term for tinkering: the (re)working of found materials to piece together new structures, identities, and rituals. On November 24, 2015, at London’s JW3—the Jewish Community Centre—a yearlong Jewish Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning, and Intersex (LGBTQI) research project culminated in a bricolage “happening” of ritual objects, photographs, storytelling, rabbinical dialogues on “queering religion,” and an evening screening of the project’s five LGBTQI Jewish ritual films—all part of the Ritual Reconstructed/Connected Communities project, funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. In its efforts Ritual Reconstructed has in no small way been facilitated by Liberal Judaism, which in the UK has led the way on LGBTQI inclusivity by being responsive to social need and by being “practical in so many ways,” to quote Rabbi Janet Darley.2 As a filmmaker, I have had the great pleasure in the last four years of working with the LGBTQI Jewish community on three big projects: my film-based PhD, [End Page 186] My Jewish London; the Rainbow Jews project (funded by the UK National Lottery Heritage Fund); and now the Ritual Reconstructed project. What has struck me from the beginning is the way this community has—since the 1970s—indeed “tinkered” to create its own symbols and ritual, all to bring a sense of togetherness and to “pump up individuals with emotional energy.”3 The philosophy behind the LGBTQI ritual activities of the Ritual Reconstructed project is essentially Reconstructionist, based on the ideas of Mordecai Kaplan.4 It is an approach to Jewish custom and belief that aims toward communal decision-making. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. The logotype for the RR project. Seder means “order.” Here, a “foreign” LGBT orange challenges the traditional order on the Passover Seder plate. © Wyman Babbage. One of the films screened at JW3 was Pride Seder,5 a record of the 2015 eve-of-London Pride Seder at South London Liberal Synagogue. An orange takes center stage at this Pride ritual, along with other “foreign” queer objects to be tinkered with at this LGBTQI bricolage event: a drag queen’s high-heel shoe, a brick, foreign “fruits,” rainbow-colored ribbons. The orange on the seder plate [End Page 187] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 2. The LGBT Pride Seder plate at South London Liberal Synagogue is full of references to Stonewall 1969—the Trans high heels, the brick, the rainbow colors—with the adjacent orange referencing an LGBT Passover Seder plate. © Mary Humphrey. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 3. Congregation and crew filming the Pride Seder at South London Liberal Synagogue, June 2015. © Mary Humphrey. [End Page 188] is a key ritual motif for many LGBTQI Jews. Indeed, the Ritual Reconstructed logotype incorporates this image. Where does the orange motif come from? As Rabbi Janet Burden has commented on www.ritualreconstructed.com, “Some years ago, a group of students at Oberlin College wished to make a statement about Jewish inclusiveness. . . . Either they, or a Jewish feminist called Susannah Heschel, had the idea of using an orange to symbolize inclusivity: It was made up of many segments, but it formed a whole . . . [that shows] that no one should be excluded from the life of our Jewish community.”6 Jean Rouch’s ethnographic films foreground the creative partnerships of the filmmaker, the “participant observer,” and the community being represented. The films we made together for Ritual Reconstructed attempted to live up to Rouch’s ideal of a creative interaction and synthesis. Ritual events were organized from within the LGBTQI Jewish Liberal community. I, in turn, organized camerawork and editing with my crew at the University of Portsmouth...

“That Word ‘Liturgy’ is So Unfortunate”: Learning the Mystical Body and Practicing Catholic Action in the U.S. Liturgical Movement (c. 1926-1955)

During the liturgical movement era in the United States (c. 1926-1955), advocates of liturgical renewal relied upon both the Mystical Body of Christ theology and the methods of Catholic Action to describe and legitimize a fundamental re-visioning of how “liturgy” should be taught and interpreted: liturgy was not an object or something to be observed, but a dynamic and ritual event in which the faithful actively participated. The liturgical experience simultaneously taught individual women, men, and children how to act as Christians in the world, and formed these same faithful into a corporate identity through their sacramental and liturgical participation in the Mystical Body of Christ. Intersecting with a renewed Catholic intellectual life and modern social concerns, the liturgical movement, with its goal of advancing a spiritual and social renewal in the modern world, inspired the faithful to adopt and apply the Mystical Body of Christ theology and Catholic Action initiatives in a variety of particular contexts, both private and public.

Blood and the City

Based on comparative fieldwork studies of the Muslim ‘Feast of the Sacrifice’, this article questions the places, shapes and stakes of ritual animal death in the urban space. The examples of Istanbul (Turkey) and Khartoum (Sudan) illustrate different but comparable perceptions, practices and management of a ritual event simultaneously associated with religious traditions and confronted with deep transformations in urbanised and globalised societies. Between ritual normalcy and controversial practice, sacrifice in the city is not reducible to a religious matter but addresses at once spatial, social and cultural issues, informed by economic and political stakes. Through a ritual performance and its manifold aspects, the article explores the multiple and evolving representations of the place and role of animals (and their death) in an urban context.

Dampak Akulturasi Budaya pada Kesenian Rakyat

The sub district of Selo lies between the slope of Merapi and Merbabu mountains. It has several arts which are still developing because of the support from the surrounding societies. Folk arts in Selo have been performed in second and forth weeks since 2008 in the Hall of Tourism Office, Selo sub district. Some of the dance forms have come to acculturation, for example, dances of Campur Bawur, Suro Indeng, Buditani and Prajuritan. Folk arts become a media for conveying feeling and thinking coming from the artist along with the supporting society. Involvemen of the arts in ritual as well as non ritual events shows that the arts have important role in the society’s life.The dances of Campur Bawur and Prajuritan  as the media of expression have been performed in onther areas such as Surakarta for the sake of appreciation and entertainment. Arts performance also represents the society’s legitimacy or belief of the dead spirit. The dead spirit as the embryo of human being and the societies is considered to be able to protect and give safety to the socienty. As an entertainment, the form of its movement is simple and the accompaniment is dynamic. Every per- formance is mostly affected by situation of the society.  The forms of make up, costums, movements, and accompaniment have mixed with moern performance. Keywords: folk dance, aculturation, entertainment.

Donations and Gift‐Giving among Newar Buddhists, Nepal

AbstractThe Newar form of Buddhism that is practised in the Kathmandu Valley constitutes an intricate pluralistic religious system. If we consider the situation today, it combines old forms of Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna Buddhism which rely on Sanskrit texts and recently adopted Theravāda beliefs and practices based on Pali texts. The first of these two schools of Buddhism has been strongly influenced by the caste system over the course of time, whereas Theravāda lays emphasis on renunciation. The paper sets out to show the centrality of the gift in all religious contexts and its role in establishing lasting social ties between the laity and religious specialists. Two different gift‐giving ceremonies are discussed: (1) the Mahāyāna/Vajrayāna Pañca Dāna, a regular annual ritual event and (2) the Theravāda Kathina Dāna, which is more of an occasional event.In both cases, donations of rice, money, etc.—more specifically a monastic robe at Kathina Dāna—are offered with much pomp and circumstance to religious specialists and/or the monastic community. During Pañca Dāna, this abundance of gifts goes to the traditional Newar samgha, i.e. Vajrayāna married priests (Vajrāchārya) and the heirs of a formerly monastic tradition (Shākya). During Kathina Dāna, they are offered to Theravāda monks. In both cases, the emphasis is on generosity; the gifts/offerings go to recipients of high socio‐religious status and express the superiority of transcendental values over secular values. However, there is one notable difference. Contrary to Kathina, which has a more individualistic optional orientation, Pañca Dāna is shaped more by caste social rules.My findings, which are drawn from a South Asian society, are a far cry from Marcel Mauss's definition of the gift as reciprocal, as discussed in his notorious essay. In the Newar community, Buddhists offer gifts with no guarantee of their being reciprocated and do not expect to receive a counter‐gift. The gifts analysed here do contribute to the cohesion of society, however, by reproducing hierarchical links and maintaining the identity of the religious specialists on the one hand, and of the laity on the other. By and large, they reinforce the bonds between people.

The Reformation of Preaching: Transformations of Worship Soundscapes in Early Modern Germany and Switzerland

The evangelical sermon was the Protestant Reformation’s central ritual event and the catalyst for a host of other changes, ranging from the abolition of the Mass to acts of violent iconoclasm. In promoting the sermon, reformers in Germany and Switzerland were in continuity with trends in medieval preaching, but at the same time the new centrality given to the preached word fundamentally altered the worship experience, particularly the aural experience. The present investigation traces the contours of the preaching landscape in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, outlines the innovations in sermonizing in Reformation Switzerland and Germany, and, by way of conclusion, suggests how these changes affected people’s public and devotional lives in two concrete ways. The reformation of Christian preaching that was at the heart of the evangelical movements of the sixteenth century not only transformed worship soundscapes in the West, resulting in a fundamentally different type of worship experience for early modern Protestants, but also impacted religious life, practice, and culture more broadly.

After the Event: Video and Its Potential for Uncovering Information

This article is based on research among potters in Tamilnadu, south India, who make and enliven clay images of gods for worship in Hindu temples. It explores the ways in which the showing of a DVD of a ritual event to participants at one such temple image consecration opened up new understandings and new lines of enquiry for the author. Key among these is the way in which the craftsman both cuts himself out of a project when his work is done while nevertheless seeking to keep open channels for new projects. This in turn reveals the way in which craftsmen work with and understand competition from other kinds of expert with different skills and competencies. I suggest that controversies that may not be visible during a ritual event may reveal themselves at other moments when people are engaging with visual depictions of such events and retrospectively comment on them or describe choices they have made after the event.

The role of dance and what it teaches about the transcendence in possession and efficacy among the Brekete Gatsi cult

This research was conducted on the Brekete Gatsi cult in Ghana to investigate the use of the body in action during the dance in the ritual context. Brekete is a possession cult found among the Ewe’s of the Volta Region-Ghana. Devotees in this cult worship the deities Kunde and Ablewa on every Friday, Sunday and during ceremonial days. They also propitiate other pantheons who are children of Kunde and Ablewa. During ritual moments they call on these deities, who manifest themselves by embodying trained mediums to enter into an act of communion with the religious community. This state of embodiment is manipulated by rhythms paralleled with ritual sacrifices and dance which the community believes attains efficacy through possession. Therefore, this article will discuss the role of two dances which are performed during the ritual of the cult. Both dances occur during the same ritual events but may be distinguished by the fact that one of them is accompanied by possession and the other is not. I have therefore labelled them as Wu (Dance) and Trɔwo le ewu du (deities are dancing). It is through the analysis of these dances that it is possible for the reader to understand the relationship between the mundane world and the supernatural world of the people who perform in this cult. The methodology used has been that of classical anthropological research approach and more particularly of participant observation of events of which I had no prior knowledge due to my Christian urban upbringing. I wish to highlight the exoticism of the experience for a researcher who, despite his own upbringing, tackled a different religious phenomenon irrespective of his social and religious affiliations. Thus, with my focus on the bodily actions and how they are used to gain access into the celestial world, I identify dance as an instrument and a medium by which the physical evidence of possession comes about. To that effect, and through the phenomenon that religious possession dance is laden with complexities and meaning, this article will hereby develop how the ritual processes and the differences between the movement of “Wu and Trɔwo le ewu du” teaches us about the ritual efficacy of possession dance. I argue here that both possession dance and the dance without possession (i) are contra-kinetically constructed, (ii) have movement sequences employing sagittal symmetrical principles, and (iii) although they have limited motifs of the steps and arm gesture, the possession dance has many variations. Finally, the Wu serves as a prelude to Trɔ di amedzi (deity has embodied or mounted its medium) and Trɔwo le ewu du, which has the concept of possession among the Brekete Gatsi cult based on the philosophy of repetitive motif characterised by intense energy, rhythmic tempo and musicality (multidi-mensional, accentuation and phrasing) from the brekete drum.

Senufo Funerals in the Folona, Mali

Among the Senufo of the Folona region of southeastern Mali, elders are given grand funerals to facilitate their dignified passage into the afterlife, to the world of the ancestors, what the Senufo call kubelekanha or “the village of the dead.”1 In the past, a single ceremony composed of a series of stages was organized to seamlessly transport the deceased from death to internment to afterlife and ancestorhood.2 Today, there are two distinct ceremonies, each with its own set of rituals: the internment completed shortly after death known as kutonri or kupirigi (“fresh” funerals), and the funeral celebrations kuugi or kuwaagi (“dry” funerals) designed to integrate the deceased within the world of the ancestors. During a Senufo funeral, one sees all of the different age-grade associations, especially musical and performance ones, in action. During the afternoon and evening, different delegations begin to arrive from neighboring villages each with their own distinctive performance traditions. Each was invited by one or more of the relatives of the deceased, usually a son or daughter, niece or nephew (Figs. 1–11). The songs, dances, and other ritual events are designed to perpetuate traditions and ancestral customs. Sometimes these may be interpreted as a sort of competition between the sexes, but in reality they are more of an expression of gender differences as complementary and fundamental to life. For the Senufo, death (kuwi or kaguwi) marks the end of a person’s life on earth and passage to another world, and it is seen more as a change of environment than an end. It is never considered to be “natural,” only occasionally the result of malevolent forces, more often due to a series of mistakes (wururi or wiriri) made by someone consciously or subconsciously. The funerary rites bi kelelahala, bi loho wo, koliwaari (lit. “to settle affairs, to pour water, to toss/throw/turn over a stool”) remain the only means to correct these errors, purify the descendants of the deceased, and ensure the deceased a place among the ancestors.

Number 2 Leighton Street and the Superheated Auckland Housing Market

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsJane HoranJane Horan was awarded her PhD in social anthropology from the University of Auckland in 2012. Her dissertation focused on the gifting economy among Cook Islanders in New Zealand and the wider Pacific. She studied specifically the production and use of the paramount ceremonial textile valuables called tivaivai. She looked at how these “unquilted quilts” dignified the gifting of substantial sums of money in ritual events in what constitutes the Cook Islands ceremonial economy. She is a postdoctoral scholar and professional teaching fellow at the University of Auckland.

Muslim sound, public space, and citizenship agendas in an American City

Based on fieldwork in a small Michigan city, this study examines a contestation over the right for Muslims to broadcast the Islamic call to prayer, or adhan, into the streets. At stake in such contestations over public space is a struggle over conflicting citizenship agendas, or ideological formations seeking to advance particular models for good citizenship and the acceptable integration of minorities. Some Hamtramck citizens who identified themselves as interfaith actors advocated a citizenship agenda to support the call to prayer based on a material and spatial conception of shared civic culture that challenged assumptions about political differences between religious communities. To forward these aims, interfaith actors organized public ritual events that offered opportunities for visceral and experiential investments into the sights, sounds, and ceremonies of Hamtramck's religiously diverse public arena. This strategy encouraged people to a cross boundaries into previously exclusive religious spaces and presented opportunities to expand the cultural boundaries of municipal belonging.

Music and Ritual in the Procession of All Souls Day in Seville Cathedral (14th – 17th centuries)

The All Souls Day’s procession is one of the highlight ritual events associated with the Omnium Sanctorum and Commemoratio omnium fidelium defunctorum festivities, which have a clear theological connection and a unified liturgical treatment. The ceremonial apparatus of these two feasts in Seville Cathedral derived from the rank, first and second respectively, they had in the Sevillian calendar. The procession had a strong emotional impact on citizenship, reflecting the influence of the doctrine of the Purgatory, and this translated into a gradual increase in private endowments that accumulated over time. In this article special emphasis is placed on the spatial -dramatically transformed in the second half of the fifteenth century- and sensory aspects of the procession’s itinerary, with particular attention to the sound elements that identified it. The idiosyncrasy and deployment of resources pertaining to this procession gave a unique character to all the two hundred and eleven processions that circulated annually through the interior of the Cathedral of Seville in the early eighteenth century.

The Cost of Being Fijian in the United Kingdom

This paper is the first within Fijian migration studies to discuss why indigenous Fijians migrate to the United Kingdom (UK) and the socio-economic challenges they face. The majority of these Fijians form a well-organised community based on similar principles as in Fiji (kinship, church, and chieftainship) and do their utmost to live ‘in the Fijian way’ (na ivakarau ni bula vakaviti), a lifestyle also known as living ‘in the manner of the land’ (i tovo vakavanua). I argue this way of life is a central aspect of being a Fijian person, which is characterised, amongst other things, by supporting kin as part of one's kinship obligations in the form of exchange and tribute. The tributes Fijian migrants make are predominantly in the form of services, goods, and especially monetary contributions towards church, communal, and ritual events to both kin in Fiji and in the UK. These monetary contributions regularly interfere with payments, such as utility bills and car insurances. As a consequence, electricity and phone lines are cut or cars are towed away. In Fiji, migrated relatives and friends are thought of as being millionaires, but this article illustrates that the reality is very different. Living costs in the UK are high and prioritising which bills to pay, how much one should contribute to church, communal, and ceremonial events, and how much money to remit to kin in Fiji can be very stressful. I discuss the pressures and motivation for these decisions in this article.

Feeding family and ancestors: Persistence of traditional Native American lifeways during the Mission Period in coastal Southern California

This study examines the role of plant foods in domestic and ceremonial contexts at a Native American Gabrieliño/Tongva village occupied during the Spanish Mission Period in coastal southern California and highlights the remarkable persistence of traditional practices. Prior perspectives of the Mission Period have stressed that Native lifeways were quickly and profoundly disrupted in areas near newly established Spanish missions in California. This study reveals that despite the unprecedented changes associated with Spanish colonization, Native Americans within the Los Angeles Basin continued to emphasize native plant foods during mortuary events, mourning ceremonies, and feasting. Food, especially during ritual events, is a medium that cements the community together and reinforces social networks. By continuing the traditional emphasis on local wild plants, along with selective use of new introduced domesticated plants, food remained an important agency of cultural identity that helped the Gabrieliño/Tongva to maintain and reinforce social relationships during a period of dramatic culture change.

BRIDGING THE PAST AND PRESENT THROUGH FOOD HERITAGE AMONG PERANAKAN CHINESE OF THE STRAITS OF MALACCA

This paper discusses the ritual role of specific types of food and drink amongst the Peranakan Chinese of the Straits of Malacca in Malaysia. Food, in this context, is not merely for consumption but functions also as ritual apparatuses. These rituals, performed by the caretaker of a Peranakan Chinese family, invoke the unseen spiritual realm during a ritual event. The Peranakan Chinese community acknowledges the significance of specific food and drink as essential to these ceremonial proceedings. Food and drink function as a bridge between the realms of the seen and the unseen, and signify a metaphysical link between ritual practitioners and the supernatural world. The Peranakan Chinese, or commonly known as the Baba-Nyonyas of the Straits of Malacca, are descendants of 15th -17th century Chinese immigrants from the Indonesian archipelago and British Malaya who adopted Nusantara customs and assimilated into local communities. Food and drinks offered to the ancestors and spirits form a major community-wide series of offerings performed a few times a year by family members who continue to maintain the tradition. Typically, the rituals coincide with events of the Chinese calendar such as Chinese New Year and the Hungry Ghost Festival. These series of rituals involve every household of the Peranakan Chinese community.

Wayang Kulit Tradisional dan Pasca-Tradisional di Jawa Masa Kini

Regional traditions of wayang kulit puppetry remain alive and vibrant in contemporary Indonesia, responding to currents of global culture, changing configurations of patronage, and the challenges of doctrinal Islam. Enterprising artists tap into new funding sources to renew audiences, strategic alliances are struck between academics and performers, and after the long hiatus of a military dictatorship under President Soeharto, wayang kulit has resumed its role as a mouthpiece for political commentary and dissent. In addition to traditional wayang kulit, the last decade has seen a surge of post-traditional wayang kulit. Post-traditional productions, which are generally not linked to ritual events or functions, etiolate and hybridize the conventions of the form, intentionally violating sacred norms and taboos. Traditionally-trained practitioners alive to global popular culture and the demands of the international contemporary art market, sometimes in collaboration with other artists, create new work that draws deeply on wayang kulit conventions and practices to speak to new audiences about issues of current relevance. While traditional and post-traditional wayang kulit present strikingly different aesthetic profiles, practitioners happily cross between the two art worlds, benefiting from contemporary society’s cultural pluralism.

Small scale camelid husbandry on the north coast of Peru (Virú Valley): Insight from stable isotope analysis

This study presents carbon and nitrogen isotopic compositions for bone collagen and serially sampled hair from a large collection of South American camelids from two Early Intermediate Period (c. 200 BC to AD 800) sites (Huaca Gallinazo and Huaca Santa Clara) in the Virú Valley (north coast of Peru). The isotopic compositions of these camelids are consistent with plant isotopic compositions from coastal and low altitude settings, but not from high altitude environments, suggesting that at least some of these animals were raised locally. We present several methodological approaches with respect to the treatment of isotopic data from archaeological contexts, outlining quantitative approaches that can provide considerable insight into isotopic variation (within groups, within individuals, between groups, between individuals), as well as temporal variation in isotopic compositions in incrementally growing tissues. We contend that focusing explicitly on variation in animal life histories has the greatest potential with respect to better understanding human–animal interactions in the past. The results demonstrate a large amount of isotopic variability among individuals and an inconsistent amount of within-individual variation, with no consistent shift in the diet leading up to the time of death for a group of animals from a single ritual event. This result suggests that camelid husbandry in the Virú Valley was a small-scale activity, with groups of camelids being managed by families or other small social units. Animals were likely kept primarily in close association to human habitation sites and provided with a diverse array of fodder. These prolonged interactions, occurring at a limited spatial scale, would have allowed a high degree of mutual familiarity to develop between humans and animals. Isotopic compositions for late Middle Horizon (c. AD 1100) sacrificed llamas from Huaca Santa Clara are consistent with Early Intermediate Period camelids, suggesting temporal stability in this small-scale camelid management strategy on the coast, which was fundamentally different from camelid herding in the pastures of the Andean highlands. Isotopic analysis of prehistoric livestock has great potential with respect to better understanding animal husbandry practices and human–animal interactions in the broadest sense because the data provide insight into the ways in which animals lived, rather than the manner in which they died. The variation-centered methodologies outlined in this paper provide a framework with which to approach some of these issues, highlighting the significance of understanding variability in livestock life histories.