“Ritual”

Ritual, Rite, Ritualization, Ritualizing . . . Below, is a series of statements about ritual. We invite you to add others. Which are formal definitions (including all that ritual is, excluding all that it is not)? Which are merely characterizations or claims? Which are testable? Which apply to the cases you know best? Which do not apply, or apply in one respect but not in another? Which are overly qualified? Which are under qualified?

“a circumscribed, out of the ordinary, multiple media event” -M.E. Combs-Schilling

“a performative practice that strives to bring about what it acts or says” -Pierre Bourdieu

“carefully rehearsed symbolic motions and gestures through which we regularly go”-Roland Delattre

“the performance of more or less invariant sequences of formal acts and utterances not entirely encoded by the performers” -Roy Rappaport

“an act or actions intentionally conducted by a group of people employing one or more symbols in a repetitive, formal, precise, highly stylized fashion” -Barbara Myerhoff

“forms of religious behavior associated with social transitions” -Victor Turner

“to make (or utilize) a pathway through what would otherwise be uncharted territory” -Tom F. Driver

“animated persons enacting formative gestures in the face of receptivity” -Ronald L. Grimes

“a multi-modal symbolic form” -Bruce Kapferer

“a sequence of behavior which is structured or patterned; which is rhythmic and repetitive” -Eugene G. d’Aquili

“the acting out of metaphoric predication upon inchoate pronouns which are in need of movement” -James Fernandez

“patterned and ordered sequences of words and acts, often expressed in multiple media, whose content and arrangement are characterized in varying degree by formality, stereotypy, condensation, and redundancy” -Stanley J. Tambiah

“the adaptive formalization and canalization of motivated human activities so as to secure more effective communicatory (’signalling’) function, reduction of intra-group damage, or better intra-group bonding” -Julian Huxley

“any complex organisation of human activity which is not specifically technical or recreational” -Max Gluckman

“actions exhibiting a striking or incongruous rigidity” -S. F. Nadel

“the incarnation of symbols, symbol clusters, metaphors, and root paradigms through formative bodily gesture” -Peter McLaren

“a perfunctory, conventionalized act through which an individual portrays his respect and regard for some object of ultimate value” -Erving Goffman

“repeated complex ‘language’ of paradigmatic word and gesture” -Richard Pilgrim

“traditional, prescribed communication with the sacred” -Laurie Honko

“a way of acting that is designed and orchestrated to distinguish and privilege” -Catherine Bell

“any pattern of standardized behaviour for the purpose of communication between men and unseen beings, men and men, men and animals, animals and men, and animals and animals, which exhibit these formal properties [of scilicet repetition, self-conscious role or play acting, stylization (i.e., the use of extraordinary action or symbols, or the extra-ordinary use of normal action and symbols), order and organization (with moments or elements of chaos and spontaneity at prescribed times and places), evocation (in order to attract attention and a collective dimension” -Jan Platvoet

“nothing more than the regular exercise of ‘good’ violence” -Rene Girard

“public menstrual practices” -Judy Grahn

“pure activity, without meaning or goal” -Frits Staal