Is Meaning A Useful Analytical Category For Understanding The Symbolism Of Rituals

Author : Johannes Lenhard
Publisher : GRIN Verlag
Page : 8 pages
File Size : 46,7 Mb
Release : 2013-02-25
Category : Education
ISBN : 9783656377603

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Is „meaning“ a useful analytical category for understanding the symbolism of rituals? by Johannes Lenhard Pdf

Essay from the year 2013 in the subject Pedagogy - Theory of Science, Anthropology, grade: 65%, University of Cambridge, language: English, abstract: According to Turner (1970:19), ritual can be defined as "formal behaviour for occasions not given over to technological routine, having reference to beliefs in mystical beings of powers. The symbol is the smallest unit of ritual". Even if one does not – as Humphrey and Laidlaw (1994) – accept Turner’s definition of ritual focused on a religious context, we might still agree that rituals are build up of symbols. Symbols in this moment are ambiguous, supposedly meaningful ‘metaphors’ that – so the debatable thesis of for instance Geertz (1993, 2004) and Bloch – need to be interpreted. In this essay, I want to follow three strands in the underlying debate. First of all, scholars such as Geertz and Bloch have taken over the notion of meaning as device in order to understand rituals – but added contextual dimensions to its sphere. Others have secondly dismissed the notion of ‘ritual as a text’ in favour of ‘ritual as performance’ (Lewis), whereas a third school of thought warns of the danger of the concept of meaning and symbolism per se (Humphrey and Laidlaw). If we accept the claim that rituals are made up of symbols, an approach that searches for the meaning of those symbols might be helpful – if the meaning is not imposed by the analyst. Rituals that are intended as a performative act, do not ask for a textual analysis, however. They are better understood with categories such as effect and emotion. If we add those dimensions to our repertoire of meaning, many rituals or ritual facettes can be made ‘comprehensible’.

Author : Fabio de Nardis
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 471 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2020-03-26
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9783030377601

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Understanding Politics and Society by Fabio de Nardis Pdf

This textbook presents political sociology as a connective social science that studies political phenomena by creating fruitful connections with other perspectives. The relationship between politics and society is more complex than ever due to the emergence of new power structures, forms of conflict organization and management, and social practices of political participation. Several scholars describe this historical phase as the 'de-politicization of representative politics'. The book addresses classical themes of and approaches to political sociology, but also dedicates several chapters to contemporary developments within political sociology, including, for instance, the role of the internet and bottom-up political communication in social movements. In addition, the volume acts as a professional tool for those scholars and researchers that are beginning to study political processes from a sociological perspective.

Author : Anthony Cerulli
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 240 pages
File Size : 52,9 Mb
Release : 2022-03-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9780520383548

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The Practice of Texts by Anthony Cerulli Pdf

Introduction : Gurukulas and tradition-making in modern Ayurveda -- Situating Sanskrit (texts) in ayurvedic education -- Practicing texts -- Knowledge that heals, freely -- From healing texts to ritualized practice -- Texts in practice : wellbeing, healing, and the ayurvedic patient.

Author : Graeme Orr
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 223 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 2016-03-09
Category : Law
ISBN : 9781317062462

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Ritual and Rhythm in Electoral Systems by Graeme Orr Pdf

’Why do we vote in schools?’ ’What is the social meaning of secret balloting?’ ’What is lost if we vote by mail or computers rather than on election day?’ ’What is the history and role of drinking and wagering in elections?’ ’How does the electoral cycle generate the theatre of election night and inaugurations?’ Elections are key public events - in a secular society the only real coming together of the social whole. Their rituals and rhythms run deep. Yet their conduct is invariably examined in instrumental ways, as if they were merely competitive games or liberal apparatus. Focusing on the political cultures and laws of the UK, the US and Australia, this book offers an historicised and generalised account of the intersection of electoral systems and the concepts of ritual, rhythm and the everyday, which form the basis of how we experience elections. As a novel contribution to the theory of the law of elections, this book will be of interest to researchers, students, administrators and policy makers in both politics and law.

Author : H. Barbara Boudewijnse,Hans-Günter Heimbrock
Publisher : Rodopi
Page : 216 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 1990
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9051831781

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Current Studies on Rituals by H. Barbara Boudewijnse,Hans-Günter Heimbrock Pdf

Author : Birgit Neumann,Ansgar Nünning
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
Page : 428 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2012-10-01
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9783110227628

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Travelling Concepts for the Study of Culture by Birgit Neumann,Ansgar Nünning Pdf

Bringing together innovative and internationally renowned experts, this volume provides concise presentations of the main concepts and cutting-edge research fields in the study of culture (rather than the infinite multitude of possible themes). More specifically, the volume outlines different models for the study of culture, explores avenues for interdisciplinary exchange, assesses key concepts and traces their travels across various disciplinary, historical and national contexts. To trace the travelling of concepts means to map both their transfer from one discipline, approach or culture of research to another, and also to identify the transformations which emerge through these processes of transfer. The volume serves to show that working with (travelling) concepts provides a unique strategy for research and research design which can open up a wide range of promising perspectives for interdisciplinary exchange. It offers an exemplary overview of an interdisciplinary and international approach to the travelling concepts that organize, structure and shape the study of culture. In doing so, the volume serves to initiate a dialogue that exceeds disciplinary and national boundaries and introduces a self-reflexive dimension to the field, thus affording a recognition of how deeply disciplinary premises and nation-specific research traditions affect different approaches in the study of culture.

Author : Jonathan S. Marion
Publisher : Berg
Page : 224 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 2008-05-01
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9781847887498

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Ballroom by Jonathan S. Marion Pdf

Competitive ballroom is much more than a style of dance. Rather, it is a continually evolving and increasingly global social and cultural arena: of fashion, performance, art, sport, gender and more. Ballroom explores the intersection of dance cultures, dress and the body. Presenting the author's experiences at an international range of dance events in Europe, the US and UK, as well as featuring the views of individual dancers, the book shows how dancing influences mind and body alike. For students of anthropology, dance, cultural and performance studies, Ballroom provides an ethnographic picture of how dancers and others live their lives both on and off the dance floor.

Author : Andrew Strathern
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 285 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2017-07-05
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781351937559

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Expressive Genres and Historical Change by Andrew Strathern Pdf

Drawing on research conducted in New Guinea, Indonesia, Melanesia and Taiwan, the contributors to this volume focus on how expressive genres such as music and dance are of enduring significance to social organization.

Author : Judith Hahn
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 301 pages
File Size : 40,9 Mb
Release : 2023-11-23
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781009330152

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The Sacraments of the Law and the Law of the Sacraments by Judith Hahn Pdf

'Sacramentality' can serve as a category that helps to understand the performative power of religious and legal rituals. Through the analysis of 'sacraments', we can observe how law uses sacramentality to change reality through performative action, and how religion uses law to organise religious rituals, including sacraments. The study of sacramental action thus shows how law and religion intertwine to produce legal, spiritual, and other social effects. In this volume, Judith Hahn explores this interplay by interpreting the Catholic sacraments as examples of sacro-legal symbols that draw on the sacramental functioning of the law to provide both spiritual and legal goods to church members. By focusing on sacro-legal symbols from the perspective of sacramental theology, legal studies, ritual theory, symbol theory, and speech act theory, Hahn's study reveals how law and religion work hand in hand to shape our social reality.

Author : Alison Krögel
Publisher : Lexington Books
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2010-12-16
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780739147610

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Food, Power, and Resistance in the Andes by Alison Krögel Pdf

Food, Power, and Resistance in the Andes is a dynamic, interdisciplinary study of how food's symbolic and pragmatic meanings influence access to power and the possibility of resistance in the Andes. In the Andes, cooking often provides Quechua women with a discursive space for achieving economic self-reliance, creative expression, and for maintaining socio-cultural identities and practices. This book explores the ways in which artistic representations of food and cooks often convey subversive meanings that resist attempts to locate indigenous Andeans-and Quechua women in particular-at the margins of power. In addition to providing an introduction to the meanings and symbolisms associated with various Andean foods, this book also includes the literary analysis of Andean poetry and prose, as well as several Quechua oral narratives collected and translated by the author during fieldwork carried out over a period of several years in the southern Peruvian Andes. By following the thematic thread of artistic representations of food, this book allows readers to explore a variety of Andean art forms created in both colonial and contemporary contexts. In genres such as the novel, Quechua oral narrative, historical chronicle, testimonies, photography, painting, and film, artists represent Quechua cooks who utilize their access to food preparation and distribution as a tactic for evading the attempts of a patriarchal hegemony to silence their voices, desires, values, and cultural expressions. Whether presented orally, visually, or in a print medium, each of these narratives represents food and cooking as a site where conflict ensues, symbolic meanings are negotiated, and identities are (re)constructed. Food, Power, and Resistance will be of interest to Andean Studies and Food Studies scholars, and to students of Anthropology and Latin American Studies.

Author : Samuel G. Ngaihte
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 273 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2019-06-27
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781000024494

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Vedic Practice, Ritual Studies and Jaimini’s Mīmāṃsāsūtras by Samuel G. Ngaihte Pdf

Drawing on insights from Indian intellectual tradition, this book examines the conception of dharma by Jaimini in his Mīmāṃsāsūtras, assessing its contemporary relevance, particularly within ritual scholarship. Presenting a hermeneutical re-reading of the text, it investigates the theme of the relationship between subjectivity and tradition in the discussion of dharma, bringing it into conversation with contemporary discourses on ritual. The primary argument offered is that Jaimini’s conception of dharma can be read as a philosophy of Vedic practice, centred on the enjoinment of the subject, whose stages of transformation possess the structure of a hermeneutic tradition. Offering both substantive and methodological insights into the contentions within the contemporary study of ritual, this book will be of interest to researchers in the fields of Hindu studies, ritual studies, Asian religion, and South Asian studies.

Author : Robert W. Blunt
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 247 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2019-11-20
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780226655895

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For Money and Elders by Robert W. Blunt Pdf

Many observers of Kenya’s complicated history see causes for concern, from the use of public office for private gain to a constitutional structure historically lopsided towards the executive branch. Yet efforts from critics and academics to diagnose the country’s problems do not often consider what these fiscal and political issues mean to ordinary Kenyans. How do Kenyans express their own political understanding, make sense of governance, and articulate what they expect from their leaders? In For Money and Elders, Robert W. Blunt addresses these questions by turning to the political, economic, and religious signs in circulation in Kenya today. He examines how Kenyans attempt to make sense of political instability caused by the uncertainty of authority behind everything from currency to title deeds. When the symbolic order of a society is up for grabs, he shows, violence may seem like an expedient way to enforce the authority of signs. Drawing on fertile concepts of sovereignty, elderhood, counterfeiting, acephaly, and more, Blunt explores phenomena as diverse as the destabilization of ritual “oaths,” public anxieties about Satanism with the advent of democratic reform, and mistrust of official signs. The result is a fascinating glimpse into Kenya’s past and present and a penetrating reflection on meanings of violence in African politics.

Author : R. Jon McGee,Richard L. Warms
Publisher : SAGE Publications
Page : 1053 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2013-08-28
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781506314617

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Theory in Social and Cultural Anthropology by R. Jon McGee,Richard L. Warms Pdf

Social and cultural anthropology and archaeology are rich subjects with deep connections in the social and physical sciences. Over the past 150 years, the subject matter and different theoretical perspectives have expanded so greatly that no single individual can command all of it. Consequently, both advanced students and professionals may be confronted with theoretical positions and names of theorists with whom they are only partially familiar, if they have heard of them at all. Students, in particular, are likely to turn to the web to find quick background information on theorists and theories. However, most web-based information is inaccurate and/or lacks depth. Students and professionals need a source to provide a quick overview of a particular theory and theorist with just the basics—the "who, what, where, how, and why". In response, SAGE Reference is publishing the two-volume Theory in Social and Cultural Anthropology: An Encyclopedia. Features & Benefits: Two volumes containing approximately 335 signed entries provide users with the most authoritative and thorough reference resource available on anthropology theory, both in terms of breadth and depth of coverage. To ease navigation between and among related entries, a Reader′s Guide groups entries thematically and each entry is followed by Cross-References. In the electronic version, the Reader′s Guide combines with the Cross-References and a detailed Index to provide robust search-and-browse capabilities. An appendix with a Chronology of Anthropology Theory allows students to easily chart directions and trends in thought and theory from early times to the present. Suggestions for Further Reading at the end of each entry and a Master Bibliography at the end guide readers to sources for more detailed research and discussion.

Author : Nancy Lutkehaus,Paul Roscoe
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 278 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2013-09-13
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781136657429

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Gender Rituals by Nancy Lutkehaus,Paul Roscoe Pdf

This volume draws together ethnographies of female initiation rites in Melanesia which require anthropologists to rethink their analysis of initiations and their perceptions of gender. The contributors argue that female initiation rites express more than cultural notions of femininity, narrow definitions of reproduction, or coming of age rituals - instead they play an important role in other life cycle rituals and in the political and economic organization of society.

Author : Owen M. Phelan
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 46,7 Mb
Release : 2014-10-23
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780191027901

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The Formation of Christian Europe by Owen M. Phelan Pdf

The Formation of Christian Europe analyses the Carolingians' efforts to form a Christian Empire with the organizing principle of the sacrament of baptism. Owen M. Phelan argues that baptism provided the foundation for this society, and offered a medium for the communication and the popularization of beliefs and ideas, through which the Carolingian Renewal established the vision of an imperium christianum in Europe. He analyses how baptism unified people theologically, socially, and politically and helped Carolingian leaders order their approaches to public life. It enabled reformers to think in ways which were ideologically consistent, publically available, and socially useful. Phelan also examines the influential court intellectual, Alcuin of York, who worked to implement a sacramental society through baptism. The book finally looks at the dissolution of Carolingian political aspirations for an imperium christianum and how, by the end of the ninth century, political frustrations concealed the deeper achievement of the Carolingian Renewal.