Urban Rituals Research Articles

When Rulers Came to Town: Jews, Christians and Urban Processions in Medieval France and the Holy Roman Empire

The festive entry of a monarch into medieval cities was an elaborate social drama involving the whole urban population. This article investigates how Jews were involved in these ceremonies in medieval France and the Holy Roman Empire, refuting previously held assumptions of their forced and marginalised roles. By demonstrating that Jews were actively included in these urban rituals, embracing local customs to welcome Christian rulers and using an array of distinctive objects to express their identity, much like other civic groups, this study argues that medieval Jews were part of an elaborate choreographed performance through which civic belonging was expressed. As Jewish participation spanned both the formal and logistical aspects of these events, medieval urban processions provide an effective case study on how religious minorities were woven into both the social and ceremonial fabric of medieval urban life.

A momentary lack of rituals: urban festivities cancelations in Geneva, Turin, and Zurich during the COVID-19 lockdowns

Rituals of territorial belonging as established practices of inclusion improve dynamics of belonging and coexistence. They are particularly significant in the city where people need rituals to trust each other. But what happens when rituals disappear? The Covid-19 pandemic is an experiment on a societal level on the role of rituals. We will analyze three canceled or strongly modified traditional events in Geneva, Zurich, and Turin. We conclude that these cancellations of rituals in urban public spaces generated a lack of territorial belonging and produced mistrust and anger, but at the same time pushed people to develop new dynamics to fill this void. Frustration over the cancellation was transformed into agency. This sense of emptiness was filled through the multiplication of personal and social rituals, through the rediscovery of the city’s territory alone or with their groups of affiliation, and through new digital rituals linked to the urban ritual.

Urban Rituals in Sacred Landscapes in Hellenistic Asia Minor

Urban Rituals in Sacred Landscapes in Hellenistic Asia Minor

Paying Homage: The Participation of Guild Confraternities in Archiepiscopal Entries into Tarragona

The original significance of the public entry of a new archbishop into Tarragona lies in the fact that the city, through its confraternities, honoured one of its social elite with a popular celebration. Urban government was based upon two authorities: the king and the archbishop. In Tarragona, a city of deeply rooted customs and traditions, the entry ritual remained almost unchanged from medieval times to the modern era. Guild confraternities were active participants in urban ritual, with their dances, figures, and fantastic animals, and thus created a nexus of identity among the urban community as a whole. Detailed descriptions in municipal chronicles make it possible to study which confraternities existed in Tarragona, and in what ways they participated in the festive celebrations and were connected to the social network, as, for a brief moment, they enjoyed an activity far removed from the daily grind of work. The aim of this article is to observe how the ecosystem of guild confraternities in Tarragona varied little over time, how they always participated with the same dance and, as a result, how the soundscape of those dances became a characteristic soundmark of urban ceremony there.

The Mayflower and ‘Mother Plymouth’: Anglo-America, civic culture and the urban past

ABSTRACT Historians are now well-attuned to the development of modern urban rituals and civic identities, and how both can depend on expressions of local and national historical character. In this article I take a different approach, by demonstrating how the idea of an Anglo-American shared past could also inflect urban culture. I use a case study of the Mayflower in Plymouth, tracing this seventeenth-century voyage’s afterlife, from its romantic and nonconformist Victorian origins to its emergence as a symbol of transatlantic ‘Anglo-Saxon’ bonds in the opening decades of the twentieth century, and all the way to its use as ‘heritage’ in the city today.

B. Deniz Çalış-Kural, Şehrengiz: Urban Rituals and Deviant Sufi Mysticism in Ottoman İstanbul

B. Deniz Çalış-Kural, Şehrengiz: Urban Rituals and Deviant Sufi Mysticism in Ottoman İstanbul

Cities and culture in the Americas

In western tradition, culture is one of the major attributes of cities (Benevolo L., 1983). Culture shapes cities with buildings that carry aesthetic and historical value, with networks of streets, avenues and boulevards for transport and general mobility, and, sometimes, with fine vistas that offer so many occasions for outings and intercourse. But culture is in return shaped by the city in so far as the city’s monuments and layout help to mold urban modes of life, urban rituals, manners and...

Urbans rituals as spaces of memory and belonging: A Geneva case study

How do cities include newcomers and established inhabitants? Do urban rituals bring people together? Because of their relative anonymity and accessibility, public rituals – as temporary processes of inclusion or emphasizers of differences – are likely to include people with respect to their differences and any intersections of these. We examine three cases in Geneva, a high mobility city – the Escalade, the Fêtes de Genève and the Saga des Géants – and their potential to foster scepticism (i.e. exclusion) or belonging (i.e. inclusion). Our policy-relevant findings indicate that in post-migration societies, rituals are crucial in fostering belonging, especially when they are based on an open narrative, organized by or with civil-society organizations and based on elements that permit the emotional involvement of the participants. We confront this emic perspective with an etic one, using variables derived from our investigation of public policies and rituals to analyse our observations and public representations of the events. • Our research provides insights for urban territories in search of inclusive practices that can be ritualized and offer a sense of belonging. • The urban space as a continuously recomposing place of inclusive histories needs rituals as a counter to fear-driven conceptions of belonging. • In post-migrant societies, rituals are crucial in fostering this sensus communis, because they require participation but not necessarily much formalized affiliation.

La dramatización de una ciudad. Significaciones rituales urbanas de la Semana Santa de Huelva

Este artículo es una mirada sobre la Semana Santa de Huelva a partir de uno de sus significados más profundos como fiesta religiosa popular: la imagen de un drama ritual urbano en el que se expresan diferentes discursos y narrativas, donde se ritualiza la relación de los sujetos participantes y los grupos sociales entre sí, con el lugar habitado y con las instancias de poder político y religioso. Englobado en una investigación etnográfica de mayor amplitud, centramos aquí la mirada en uno de los dife­rentes significados productores de sentido para la comprensión de esta compleja fiesta religiosa popular. Analizamos la conforma­ción, estructura y temporalidad del drama ritual y proponemos una interpretación acerca del simbolismo contenido en los cortejos procesionales que se ponen en juego en el ceremonial público.

Игровые компьютерные среды и меняющийся опыт городских коммуникаций

Thanks to mobile technologies, a modern city exists as an intersection of real and virtual worlds, combining face-to-face and online communications. Also, a city is a constantly recreated object in virtual gaming spaces and is not just a passive background, but an important resource for the development of gameplay. Hybridization as the addition of physical space to virtual space, and transmediation as the free transfer of content between different platforms, provide new opportunities for citizens to participate and observe urban life. The article's aim is a conceptualization of changes in the urban communication experience on the example of commemorative activities. The authors discuss the case of the Victory Parade on May 9, 2020, which was hosted by gamers in the online space, but thanks to streamers it was broadcast to a wide audience. All participants tried to somehow correspond to a real parade: they used equipment and combat subunits (units), chose locations similar to urban squares, tried to walk, ride or fly in formation, used the marches or songs of the war years. Both gamers and official teams of game developers created their parades. Authors concluded that gaming space, its architecture, and artifacts are of essential importance for this event and creates the basis for a full, partial, or creative reconstruction of the event. The authors note that online games are changing the experience of urban interactions, becoming a platform for both communication and maintaining cultural patterns, for example, for developing citizen rituals. The reproduction of urban rituals in gaming spaces reconfigures the collaborative social activities of nowadays citizens.

Сура – взгляд этнографа

The article gives a concise ethnographic characteristic of Sura village and its surroundings. The first part of the article is devoted to the issue of passageways in the vicinity of the village. The author utilizes M.V. Vitov’s approach to the problem of river traffic in the North. Furthermore, the reindeer-raising passageways are shown and the connection of those passageways with the Chuprov Bor landmark, on the Pinega side opposite to Sura, is described. The second part of the article offers a concise characteristic of two rituals: wedding ritual and “metishche” (specially selected place for festivals). The wedding ritual differs substantially from the Pinezh urban wedding ritual. The “Metishche” ritual on St. Peter’s Day is characterized on the basis of the literary description by S.G. Pisakhov. The third part of the article is devoted to the description of the events of 1920–1930 in Sura on the basis of the memories of L.A. Kychina (Malkina). Such issues as pre-kolkhoz life, collectivization and stratification in kolkhoz are touched upon.

Gods, Gurus, Prophets and the Poor: Exploring Informal, Interfaith Exchanges among Working Class Female Workers in an Indian City

This article revolves around the narratives of Sabita (Muslim), Radha (Hindu) and Sharleen (Christian), migrant women in their mid-forties, who have been working as maids, cooks and cleaners in middle-class housing colonies in Kolkata, a city in eastern India. Informal understandings of gendered oppressions across religious traditions often dominate the conversations of the three working-class women. Like many labourers from slums and lower-class neighbourhoods, they meet and debate religious concerns in informal ‘resting places’ (under a tree, on a park bench, at a tea stall, on a train, at a corner of a railway platform). These anonymous spaces are usually devoid of religious symbols, as well as any moral surveillance of women’s colloquial abuse of male dominance in society. I show how the anecdotes of struggle, culled across multiple religious practices, intersect with the shared existential realities of these urban workers. They temporarily empower female members of the informal workforce in the city, to create loosely defined gendered solidarities in the face of patriarchal authority, and reflect on daily discrimination against economically marginalised migrant women. I argue that these fleeting urban rituals underline the more vital role of (what I describe as) poor people’s ‘casual philosophies’, in enhancing empathy and dialogue between communities that are characterised by political tensions in India.

The Sustainability of an Urban Ritual in the Collective Memory: Bergama Kermesi

Bergama Festival, locally known as Bergama Kermesi, is an annual festival which dates back to 22 May 1937 in the city. It came into existence as a result of Atatürk’s intention to introduce this, an extraordinary town with its historical and cultural properties, and promote it internationally. The Festival is an important element in the collective memory of the city. Initially, it was a civic event, a device in the formation process of the Turkish Republic. However, now, it is a civil event for national and international representatives, and a festival that allows locals and guests from different social, economic, and cultural backgrounds to mix freely and equally for a certain period. In the course of the Festival, the public buildings and the open spaces of the town become places of activity and entertainment. Parks, stadiums, the town square, and streets function as spaces for a variety of activities. Looking back at its 81-year history, one can notice some important changes in the Festival’s cultural and social practices, from an earlier state-dominated character into the current more publicly oriented one. This article studies the change of Bergama Festival as an ‘invented tradition’ into an element of the collective memory in town from the perspective of different public affairs that it introduces. In this regard, the article will also show how an urban ritual can maintain its sustainability by keeping itself fresh in the social life.

Plotters and Martyrs: The Justice and Development Party's (AKP) Constituting of Political Actors in the 15 July Coup Event

ABSTRACTIn 2016 an unexpected and ill-organized coup d’état occurred in Turkey. It failed within 24 hours, in part due to the bravery of thousands of citizens who in opposition to the soldiers and tanks occupied the squares and streets of Istanbul and Ankara. Designated in the political vernacular as the 15 July event, the AKP government has sought to compose its authorized version of the coup attempt through urban ritual and performance, even as it governs using repressive state of emergency decrees. This paper describes and assesses the reception of this symbolic and narrative work, which is intended to foster in citizens certain desired affective feelings and understandings about the coup attempt. It concludes that the government’s symbolic offensive has been a relative failure in modifying the perceptions of Istanbul’s inhabitants. This failure relates to citizens’ experiential knowledge of the government’s less-than-democratic previous acts in Istanbul, most significantly in its violent response to the mass Gezi Park protests in 2013. Equally importantly, it also reveals the importance of the temporal layering of experience for political perception, and thus of the significance of political subjects’ historical being.

Unearthing movement, urban ritual and environmental urgency: A performance album from Jill Sigman’s Weed Heart

Abstract During the summer and fall of 2016, artist Jill Sigman and dramaturg Chelsea Adewunmi engaged in a creative and dialectic process as part of the project Weed Heart. Weed Heart was a multi-faceted work that dealt with questions around what we can learn from weeds, the plants we marginalize, and how those plants are related to the histories and power dynamics of human populations and the human destruction of the planet. Their work involved conversations around the resonances between weeds and humans, studio work in which Adewunmi gave Sigman feedback on movement improvisations and choreographic structure, and analysis of an ongoing video blog that wove Sigman’s personal story together with plant histories as part of the performance. The performance album that follows contains textual and visual artifacts from this process: Adewunmi’s reflections on Weed Heart, Sigman’s thoughts about her goals for the project, as well as photos from the performances. The reader is invited to approach this album in a nonlinear way in keeping with the rhizomic nature of the process and performance.

La ville amplifiée

Les techniques de sonorisation des rituels urbains au Caire ont connu dans l’histoire récente une série d’innovations dont les conséquences parfois involontaires ont modifié les environnements sonores, influencé l’esthétique musicale, et au final façonné un pan de la culture populaire. Le synthétiseur a accompagné le développement de la sonorisation au prix de quelques modifications, et il est devenu une source importante de la diffusion des nouvelles sonorités, avec les modes d’amplification et de transformation des sons. Cadre codifié d’exposition de la société citadine ou bien cérémonies religieuses adossées aux tombeaux des saints, ces rituels sont désormais qualifiés par un environnement sonore spécifique identifiable à la fois par ceux qui s’en reconnaissent et ceux qui le rejettent. Ainsi, sonorités électrifiées et usages spécifiques du synthétiseur dessinent les contours de différenciations sociales et culturelles dans la ville. Cet article propose quelques pistes de recherche autour de l’avènement du synthétiseur et de la mise au point de modes de sonorisation qui mettent en relief le caractère collaboratif et non linéaire de ces innovations et leur contribution à l’histoire culturelle nationale.Égypte, amplification, effets électro-acoustiques, synthétiseur, rituels, différenciation sociale et culturelle.

Shaping Place Identity through Interaction on the Example of the European Solidarity Centre in Gdansk

The article presents process of shaping place identity on the example of an important for Pomerania region investment - European Solidarity Centre. The idea of a Solidarity social movement is strongly associated with the formation of post-socialist national identity of Poland as well as local identity of Pomerania, from which movement originates. The realization of the European Solidarity Centre aims to be one of the essential elements of shaping Gdańsk’s identity of space. The article is an attempt to analyse how the presence of realization gradually affects the formation of the place identity of new urban space. Analysis of this realization will allow on the one hand to verify design assumptions made by authors, on the other provides the opportunity to search for best description of still vague notion of local identity. This concept, though intuitively close to everyone still seems to elude conceptual apparatus of theory of architecture. The intention of this article is to explore the notion of identity based on the observations of the newly realized significant cultural space. This analysis approaches the concept of identity from two perspectives. The first approach draws from the concept of identity of Christian Norberg-Schulz. Here, local identity is seen as a unique set of characteristics of space. So seen the concept of place identity is a correlate of concept of personal identity. In this analysis, methods of description of personal identity were transferred to the identity of the place. In the second approach, the identity of place is understood as a unique for that place way of being in space, way to spend time and development of the site-specific urban rituals. Such a concept of identity, draws from the concept of place of Kim Dovey. Both presented approaches seems to complement each other but they also emphasize different qualities. The now-traditional concept of Genius Loci sees architecture as a structural system of meanings. Meaningful elements are seen here primarily from aesthetic perspective. As something we can see. In this perspective, the concept of place identity is seen as a static formation. This perfectly corresponds to design determinants of historical spaces associated with the concept of cultural heritage. In the authors’ opinion identity of the place is also built on the interactions that occur between users in space. The space in this approach becomes a catalyst for social contact. What is important for the user is the formation of identity through customs, rituals and urban traditions - that create new network of social connections. This concept of place recognizes dynamic nature of space identity - as a changeable formation which is continuously co-created. Such recognition can give better understanding of identity for specific design conditions, such as gradual formation of new urban spaces. It is so because this approach places emphasis on the processual nature of space identity - as in the case discussed in the article.

‘Música Para Los Reconciliados’: Music, Emotion, and Inquisitorial ‘Autos De Fe’ in early Modern Hispanic Cities

The autos de Je organized by the Spanish Inquisition tribunals were urban rituals in which music was deeply integrated. Music played a primordial role in every stage of the event: the proclamation of the day for the ceremony; the procession of the emblem of the Inquisition; the processions of penitents and Inquisition familiars; the religious ceremonies celebrated before and during the auto itself; and the reconciliation of the penitents with the Catholic faith. This article presents the results of an analysis of the musical references found in written accounts of the autos and in other documents related to ceremonies held in several cities in Spain and Latin America during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The research reveals who contributed to the music performed at the autos and how members of the public who attended participated in music-making; it affords a glimpse of the musical genres represented; and it shows how music contributed to the evocation of the wide range of emotions experienced by those attending, and thereby to the exaltation of Catholic devotion.

Australian Triumphal Arches and Settler Colonial Cultural Narratives

Within the Western architectural canon, the triumphal arch has been used to embody symbolism and meaning in the urban rituals of parades and processions. This paper examines temporary triumphal arches constructed in Australia between 1868 and 1954, to celebrate visits by the British royal family and their representatives. Each of the arches selected for discussion incorporated Australian Indigenous people, buildings or artefacts, which were curated to convey carefully crafted narratives of colonisation. A raft of interpretations can be read into each of the arches because they are intentionally loaded with meaning and symbolism. Particularly evident are the notions of protectionism and assimilation, which were central to the settler colonial narrative. Understandings of the arches is framed by the interpretive information available about them – photographic documentation taken of the in situ arches, drawings and textual descriptions. This paper examines how the triumphal arch form enshrined Australian Indigenous culture into the narrative of colonial experience. It explores how the triumphal arches presented particular representations of Indigenous cultures, both through the allegorical narratives inherent in their physical design, and through the involvement of performers in the events.

Festivals, Rituals, and Urban Landscape in Eighteenth-Century Maharashtra

Urban landscapes are formed and reformed through the interactions of people, place, and time. These processes are most of the time slow-paced (except in the event of disasters, wars, or deliberate interventions) and their effect is apparent over a span of decades, if not centuries. However, urban landscapes can transform in a matter of days, although temporarily, through various rituals and festivals celebrated at the level of a neighbourhood or a city. Such rituals and festivals played an important role in giving meaning to the urban landscape of eighteenth-century Maharashtra. The meaning-making operated at the level of regions, settlements, and neighbourhoods. In settlements, these rituals and festivals gave sanctity to the town, protected it from supernatural forces, and symbolically connected it to the cosmic whole. The paper discusses such meaning-making through the instrument of rituals and festivities as observed in eighteenth-century Maharashtra (in India) under the Peśvā rulers (a Persian word meaning ‘leader’).The first part of the paper examines urban festivals and rituals in pre-colonial India as studied by various scholars. In the second part, the emergent themes are studied in the context of Maharashtra, both as observed through historic contemporary literary sources and through field study in Wai (in Satara district, Maharashtra). The latter part focuses in particular on the festival of the river goddess Kṛṣṇā celebrated at Wai as an example of a living tradition of urban festivals. It is argued that the study of ephemeral urban landscapes reveals continued associations and meanings that a culture group attaches to them. This understanding is important for managing historic urban landscapes, not just for their physical fabric, but also for the values and continuities embedded in them.