Dear Colleagues,

Dynamics of Ritual Studies

In recent years, we have seen that Ritual Studies scholars attempt to structure their work in several ways (cf. overview in Post, 2015). First, we see interdisciplinary approaches of ritual by bringing in different disciplines with a strong focus on theory and method (cf. anthropology, cognitive science, history, religious studies, theater studies etc.). Second, there is a conceptual approach, using broad concepts like magic, gender, agency, power, play, identity, authenticity, etc. to study rituals. Third and quite classic is working with themes or topics; in fact, there seems to be a kind of ‘canon of topics’ in Ritual Studies, such as rites de passage, death and dying, religion and spirituality, violence, pilgrimage, etc. Fourth and quite recent, we have seen research focusing on processes in relation to ritual, such as failing, negotiating, denying, postponing, creating or sharing ritual (cf. Hüsken et al. 2007, 2012, 2013; Faro, 2015).

Ritual fields

In this Special Issue of Religions, we take the third approach as our starting point, but we reframe classic topics to what we call ‘ritual fields’. With ‘field’, we indicate a cultural domain or zone where ritual repertoires manifest themselves with a certain coherence in context and performance. For example, the classic topic of ‘pilgrimage’ becomes, in our proposal, part of the broad and dynamic field of ‘travelling’, which includes rituals related to tourism and (forced) migration. We access these ritual fields using the fourth approach mentioned above, but also here we broaden the focus and aim at studying rituals as part of processes. These processes function as a perspective or lens to study rituals (cf. Post & Sparks, 2015).

We have chosen five ritual fields which seem to us of topical interest today, at least in Western societies. These fields are:

1. Travelling, with subthemes like tourism, pilgrimage, (forced) migration;
2. Commemorating, i.e., the field of remembering, dealing with the past in a ritual way, museums, ‘heritagization’, memorials;
3. Eating & drinking, where in many contexts, we see the emergence of meals, of cherishing the general repertoire of eating and drinking;
4. Life cycle rituals, as apart from the traditional life cycle rituals, we see the creation of new rituals, such as divorce rituals, transgender rituals, new death rituals;
5. Health and well-being, the domain of practices of healing and coping, interest in health, aging, etc., which is an emerging interdisciplinary research area (cf. medical anthropology, health humanities etc.).

Perspectives or lenses

Regarding the lenses or perspectives, we suggest some processes that are closely linked to ritual dynamics today and as such are fruitful to analyze ritual dynamics. We mention five perspectives: sacralizing (setting things, persons, etc. apart by making use of rituals (Evans, 2003)), digitalizing (that is the interference of online and offline dimensions in ritual acting), aestheticizing (bringing in the arts in the ritual performance), situating/placing (attention for dimension of place and space, cf. buildings, temples, houses, the city as locus, landscape, ritual transfer (Post, Nel, Van Beek, 2014)), and the general process of creating, (re-)inventing (here the focus is on new elements, emerging rituals, the (re-)invention of ritual).

Ritual

We start from an open and general working definition of ritual (Post, 2015). For us, ritual is a more or less repeatable sequence of action units that take on a symbolic dimension through formalization, stylization, and their situation in place and time. On the one hand, individuals and groups express their ideas and ideals, their mentalities, and identities through these rituals. On the other hand, the ritual actions shape, foster, and transform these ideas, mentalities, and identities. Following ritual studies, scholar Ronald Grimes (Grimes, 2014) and performance studies scholar Richard Schechner (Schechner, 2012), we position ritual on a continuum of practices that ranges from practices with a more or less ritual dimension to ritual-like activities to formal or institutionalized rituals.

References

Mathew Evans: “The sacred: differentiating, clarifying and extending concepts,” in Review of Religious Research 45,1 (2003) 32-47

Laurie Faro, Postponed Monuments in the Netherlands. Manifestation, Context, and Meaning (PhD diss., Tilburg University, 2015).

Ronald Grimes, The Craft of Ritual Studies (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014)

Ute Hüsken, ed., When Rituals Go Wrong. Mistakes, Failure, and the Dynamics of Ritual (=Numen Book Series 115) (Leiden: Brill, 2007).

Ute Hüsken and Donna Lynne Seamone, eds., Journal of Ritual Studies 27, no. 1 (2013): Special Issue “The Denial of Ritual and Its Return.” See our section below on this theme.

Ute Hüsken and Frank Neubert, eds., Negotiating Rites (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

Paul Post: “Ritual Studies,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion, Oxford UP (New York/Oxford: Oxford UP, Sept. 2015): DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.21.

Paul Post, Philip Nel, and Walter van Beek, eds., Sacred Spaces and Contested Identities. Space and Ritual Dynamics in Europe and Africa (Trenton: Africa World Press, 2014).

Paul Post and Logan Sparks, eds., The Study of Culture Through the Lens of Ritual (=Netherlands Studies in Ritual and Liturgy 15) (Groningen: Institute for Ritual and Liturgical Studies, 2015).

Richard Schechner, Performance studies. An introduction (New York/London: Routledge 2012, 2^nd ed.).

Invitation: call for articles

We invite scholars from different academic traditions to present studies that find their place in this setting. Regarding the fields, we ask scholars to present a case study (or several case studies) that fit in one of the fields. For the lenses or perspectives, the choice is open: The case study can be explored, analyzed, and evaluated from more than one perspective.

We hope to compose a ground-breaking Special Issue regarding ritual dynamics today. We anticipate around 10 contributions that can also be presented separately as a book.

Dr. Martin Hoondert
Prof. Dr. Paul Post
Guest Editors

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