Abstract
What are rituals? How do they help us articulate our identities, our values, and our society? This chapter explores the tradition of ritual theory in sociology, focusing on how it configures emotions, bodies, structures and the self. We begin by tracing the intellectual heritage of ritual theory, initiated by Emile Durkheim, revamped by Erving Goffman, and then further coalescing with the work of Randall Collins. We then consider the different methodologies and approaches available to conduct research on rituals and social interaction, followed by an exploration of select areas of sociological research that draw on ritual theory to illuminate social processes. These areas include: the study of criminal justice and punishment, violence, social movements and activism, economic markets and consumption. This provides a view of how ritual theory can be used to advance research agendas. We conclude by highlighting emergent ideas and nascent challenges for contemporary sociology to contend with, such as questioning the concept of solitary and technology-mediated rituals and the uneasy relationship with macro-sociology and social structure.
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Notes
- 1.
While Durkheim’s work on ritual tends to focus on his empirical work on religion, much of his earlier work hints at the ritual basis for social solidarity; one could read the Division of Labor in Society, Suicide, and The Rules of the Sociological Methods as case studies of the different ways of social organization dictate the types of rituals that you participate in.For example, societies characterized by mechanic or organic solidarity dictate what type of rituals people living in those societies participate in. Similarly, the concept of Anomie and later classification of anomic suicide is also a study in the lack of solidarity or shared morals that come from lack of rituals of social integration.
- 2.
While punishment may not be the public spectacle it was historically in France and England, with public executions and floggings, media and technology has since emerged that has allowed for more public access to and participation in punishment rituals, either through the more access to events taking place inside the courts or prisons (such as the live-blogging of high profile trials, sentencing hearings, and executions), ‘shaming’ punishments such as sex-offender registries, or the recent popularity of websites, blogs, facebook pages, etc. devoted to a form of internet vigilante justice for wrongdoing, either perceived or imagined. Arguably, through new media and its attendant rituals, values are reaffirmed, upheld, and negotiated. This demonstrates the complex texture of emotional communities that make up any society—they may be numerous factions responding differently to the source of stimuli. And so in this way, punishment rituals remain a means through which competing social values can be expressed and disputed. An example that demonstrates the social complexity of justice and punishment is the public response to the capture and execution of Saddam Hussein, whose public hanging was recorded on a mobile phone and broadcast through the internet. Unlike the official footage of the event, which did not show the hanging, this leaked video showed the full event with audio of witnesses jeering at Hussein. Amidst the hot criticism against the US government for Hussein’s capture and punishment, this emotional display at the hanging drew added reproach, in part because it exposed the backstage of this supposedly official and rational process.
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Rossner, M., Meher, M. (2014). Emotions in Ritual Theories. In: Stets, J., Turner, J. (eds) Handbook of the Sociology of Emotions: Volume II. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9130-4_10
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