“You Go ‘Cause You Have to”: The Bridal Shower as a Ritual of Obligation

Getting married is one of the most celebrated and revered transitions in a woman's life. Therefore, many rituals and events exist to prepare a woman to become a wife. The bridal shower is one of those that is most steeped in tradition. It may be viewed as an event in which women friends and family members must participate. Women often attend bridal showers out of “duty.” Interestingly, many women find them boring, socially awkward, or otherwise uncomfortable. In this article, I identify the primary stressors of bridal showers for the three major participants: brides‐to‐be, hostesses, and guests. Finally, I explore the persistence of this ritual, despite its apparent lack of appeal for participants. This study draws on interviews with fifty‐one women who are recent brides or who have recently hosted or attended bridal showers, as well as participant observation at five bridal showers. I discuss the bridal shower as a ritual of obligation, one that is grounded in tradition and gives women the opportunity to express care and support for other women as members of a gender community.     

Mediatized Ritual – Expanding the Field in the Study of Media and Ritual

The purpose of the article Mediatized ritual – Expanding the field in the study of media and ritual is to identify the key debates in present‐day scholarship on media and ritual and bring them into dialogue with current theorizing on the mediatization of society and culture. The article consists of three parts. The first presents a short outline of the study of media and ritual in modern life. The second discusses the idea of mediatized ritual as an evolving concept in the field. The third provides an empirical illustration of the mediatization of ritual by applying the concept to the analysis of the death of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013). In conclusion, it is argued that to study mediatized rituals in today's society is to face the theoretical and empirical challenge of engaging the two social realms of ritual and media in a close interplay. This intellectual venture changes our understanding not only of rituals and media (what they are and what they do) but also of society. This said, to study mediatized rituals is, in fact, to study society in action.     

Generative Ritual Among Nonmetropolitan Lesbians and Gay Men: Promoting Social Inclusion

Generativity is typically studied as a normative adult inclination expressed through social roles (D.P. McAdams & E. de St. Aubin, 1992). We extend this research by examining generativity through the lenses of social marginality and ritual. Toward this end, we utilize in‐depth interview and observational data about family rituals from 49 downstate Illinois residents who participated in a larger survey of nonmetropolitan lesbian and gay life. We first examine their ritual intentions and the locations where they are enacted. Then we identify what makes the rituals generative and identify their facilitating and moderating conditions. The findings suggest a distinction between normative and queer generativity. Our final product is a substantive grounded theory of generativity among sexual minorities that extends current theory.     

“God Is Like a Drug…”: Explaining Interaction Ritual Chains in American Megachurches

Megachurches have been criticized as superficial sources of entertainment that do not produce significant feelings of belonging, moral responsibility, or spirituality. This article challenges popular criticisms of megachurches and, drawing on interaction ritual theory, proposes that megachurches are successful interaction ritual venues and powerful purveyors of emotional religious experience. We predict that these interaction rituals produce positive emotional energy, membership symbols that are charged with emotional significance, feelings of morality, and a heightened sense of spirituality. From a census of 1,250 known megachurches in America, 12 were selected that closely represent the national megachurch profile. At each church, focus groups were conducted and attendees participated in a survey. We combine these data sources to provide a more comprehensive picture of the megachurch interaction ritual. The combined qualitative and quantitative results provide strong support for our predictions.     

Jewish* Self-interest in “Black Pluralism”

From time immemorial Jewish tribal exclusiveness among dominant societal groups has resulted in various forms of conflict determined by the social situation. The critical force involved has been the group's peculiar resistance to social assimilation. Different social systems react differently to the persistence of this trait. The caste system of India, for example, would hardly notice it. But capitalist culture, which originated in the European medieval city, has constantly resisted it; that culture is basically assimilationist. American Negroes, in their opposition to racism, have relied mainly on the ideology of assimilation. These two divergent tendencies have come into collision recently.     

Ritualizing the Routine: Collective Identity Affirmation

Groups use rituals to create and preserve collective identities. Separation of sacred practices from customary activities has long been considered a key property of ritual. However, customary activities form the basis of some ritual celebrations. We explain how a different process of identity creation results: identity affirmation. We find that groups affirm their customary practices on ritual occasions when they intend to celebrate practices already associated with the sacred, and we explain the structure of such rituals using a case study of a university centennial celebration. We argue that attention to variation in ritual casts light on the values and collective identity of groups.     

#Funeral and Instagram: death,social media,and platform vernacular

This paper presents findings from a study of Instagram use and funerary practices that analysed photographs shared on public profiles tagged with ‘#funeral’. We found that the majority of images uploaded with the hashtag #funeral often communicated a person's emotional circumstances and affective context, and allowed them to reposition their funeral experience amongst wider networks of acquaintances, friends, and family. We argue that photo-sharing through Instagram echoes broader shifts in commemorative and memorialization practices, moving away from formal and institutionalized rituals to informal and personalized, vernacular practices. Finally, we consider how Instagram's ‘platform vernacular’ unfolds in relation to traditions and contexts of death, mourning, and memorialization. This research contributes to a broader understanding of how platform vernaculars are shaped through the logics of architecture and use. This research also directly contributes to the understanding of death and digital media by examining how social media is being mobilized in relation to death, the differences that different media platforms make, and the ways social media are increasingly entwined with the places, events, and rituals of mourning.     

STRATEGIC RITUALIZATION AND ETHNICITY: ATYPOLOGY AND ANALYSIS OF RITUAL ENACTMENTS IN AN ITALIAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY

This investigation utilizes a theoretical framework that focuses on ritual enactments to examine the ways members of an Italian American community in southeastern Oklahoma use social rituals to achieve different outcomes. Several methodological strategies (especially interviews and historical analysis) are utilized to document how individuals within this ethnic community have, for over the last century, employed numerous rituals to, among other things, express their ethnicity, create community ties, enhance personal gain, and survive. Building upon the theory of structural ritualization, the concept of strategic ritualization is employed and expanded upon to examine this issue. A typology of three types of strategic ritualization is presented and defined: ritual legitimators, ritual entrepreneurs, and ritual sponsors. This conceptualization represents the first elaboration of structural ritualization theory addressing this topic. In focusing on this little studied ethnic community, the importance of ritualized practices and their strategicuse throughout society are emphasized. The relation of this research to broader concerns dealing with the social constructionist approach to ethnicity and the intersection of decision-making, culture, and structure are briefly highlighted and directions for future theory development and research are indicated.     

SOCIAL DENSITY AND PUBLIC RITUAL IN NON-INDUSTRIAL COMMUNITIES

An implication of Durkheimian theory—that different types of rites and the elaborateness of public rituals are determined by social density—is empirically tested, using data available for 183 non-industrial communities derived from Murdock's Standard Cross-Cultural Sample. Support for the hypothesis is sustained even when alternative predicting variables are added. Contrary to social evolutionist theory, an increase in the division of labor does not appear to suppress ritual activity. This reaffirms the interest of some contemporary sociologists in ferreting out the forms and functions of ritual in modern societies.     

Transnational households and ritual: an overview

In this article we introduce five papers, all by social anthropologists, all concerned with transnational households and ritual. Despite wide–ranging research on transnational migration and diasporas, many aspects have been accorded less consideration than they deserve. The transnational practices of migrant families, other than remittances and other economic activity, remain under–investigated. Some thought has been given to the transnational dimension of religious belief systems, notably Islam, but the micro–politics of religion has been largely ignored, and there has been little discussion of transnational religious practices (rituals) at the level of households and families, especially those performed by migrants back in their countries of origin. Household–level analyses of the performances of and meanings attributed to life–crisis rituals and consideration of what Salih has called the ‘transnational division of ritual space’ offer a valuable route to understanding relations between place, culture, ethnicity and gender among migrants in a transnational world, and illuminate contemporary processes of globalization.     

“Earn Your Penny Elsewhere”: Banishment,Migrant Laborers,and Sociospatial Exclusion in Sixteenth‐Century Ulm*

Abstract The town council in Ulm, Germany banished over a thousand offenders in the course of the sixteenth century. Examination of the banishment verdicts issued by these magistrates reveals how they used expulsion to regulate both the physical borders of their territory and inclusion in the urban commune. In banishment cases involving resident aliens, the local authorities sought to expel resident aliens who seemed to threaten the community's property or its purity, using purgation to police the margin between legal and physical inclusion and exclusion. Finally, the local magistrates used the public expulsion rituals that accompanied banishment to display their role in regulating these boundaries before their subjects.     

The Declining Significance of Delinquent Labels in Disadvantaged Urban Communities1

Labeling theory posits that formal sanctions contribute negative defining information to a youth’s reputation and that novice delinquents internalize these negative appraisals. Reflected appraisals and social rejection, in turn, reinforce delinquency. In the context of severely disadvantaged inner‐city communities—where arrests have become a normal and expected ritual of male adolescence, and official labelers and labels have less legitimacy—the alleged preconditions for a “labeling” effect of an arrest are generally not met. Retrospective, personal interviews with 20 minority youth (aged 18–20) from high‐poverty urban neighborhoods, who experienced at least one juvenile arrest, suggest that juvenile arrests typically carry little stigma and do little discernible harm to self‐concept or social relationships. Micro‐level labeling theory is an inadequate framework to understand the social impact of mass criminal justice intervention in inner‐city communities. Whereas the individual social psychological impact of the official labeling process has weakened, the mass criminalization of inner‐city African‐American youth has exacted collective costs in terms of social exclusion and diminished social expectations.     

WHEN THE DOCTOR IS A “LADY”: POWER,STATUS AND GENDER IN PHYSICIAN-PATIENT ENCOUNTERS*

An extensive body of research indicates that men interrupt women much more often than the reverse, across a variety of situations. Some conclude that men's interruptions of women in cross-sex conversations constitute an exercise of power and dominance over their conversational partners. To be sure, power is an important facet of many other social relationships, such as those between whites and Blacks, bosses and employees, and—of immediate interest—doctors and patients. Moreover, much of our existing knowledge of sex differences in behavior confounds gender with status. This paper reports results of an exploratory study of interruptions between physicians and patients during actual “visits to the doctor.” Findings based on detailed analyses of videotaped encounters offer empirical support for an asymmetrical view of the physician-patient relationship: physicians interrupt patients disproportionately—except when the doctor is a “lady.” Then, patients interrupt as much or more than physicians, and their interruptions seem to subvert physicians' authority. Discussion focuses on the respective roles of power, status and gender in face-to-face interaction.     

Die Wirkung organisationaler Rituale – Eine qualitative Interviewstudie

Organizational rituals pose a paradox. They are ubiquitous in business and other organizations; however, they do not fulfill an obvious organizational purpose. Psychological research on ritual suggests that group rituals fulfill important social functions and thereby solve the adaptive problems associated with living in large groups. Prior research on organizational ritual is dominated by case studies that often neglect the ritual participants’ perspective. Thus, in this article we aim at investigating which effects organizational members attribute to organizational rituals and at tapping into the implicit theories concerning the evolution of these effects. Based on qualitative interviews conducted with employees of different organizations from different sectors, holding different positions and employment contracts, the effects of organizational rituals on the individual as well as on the group level will be presented. Results suggest that organizational group rituals are linked above all with positive effects, whereby fostering and establishing group cohesion is the most frequently mentioned effect. The article will conclude with practical implications derived from the study results.     

Interpretative Freedom and New Combination: The Way in Which the “Middle Class” Has Been Narrated

The English words “middle class” have experienced much more connotations and denotations—typically “bourgeoisie,” “white‐collar,” and professional—than any other class‐referring word since the latter half of the 18th century. On the one hand, in response to such diverse narrations during about two and a half centuries, I partially agree with some of the nominalistic theories of class, in that the middle classes were not created until they were named by contemporaries. On the other hand, my view diverges from those theories, in my asserting that the contemporaries have had an interpretative freedom to recognize “middle classes” only within the bounds of plausibility on the side of the realistic social world. The typical middle class in each period has emerged in such a way that Schumpeter's new combination is performed in a stage of recession by new entrepreneurs, who will move into the “middle” strata and hold some cultural leadership but still obtain inconsistent statuses, to be recognized as “middle class”ex post facto in a boom time. Two Kondratieff's cycles have had one recognition of the typical “middle class.” The new combination is one of the pressures bringing middle classes into a modern society, contrary to the so‐called class decomposition into the two poles.     

Therapeutic ritual. Helping families grow

1. Family development can be inhibited by lack of social or family rituals to facilitate life cycle transitions. Therapeutic rituals can be used to help families mobilize their resources for healing, growth, and change. 2. A therapeutic ritual can help a family to resolve conflicts and resentments, to negotiate new roles and relational boundaries, and to develop new shared meanings among its members about their ongoing life together. 3. The success of a therapeutic intervention is influenced by the nurse-therapist's understanding of the family's culture, values, and needs, as well as familiarity with the directive nature of strategic therapy concepts on which therapeutic rituals are based.     

The last of the Li: ritual texts and shifting ethnicities in Hainan

On Hainan, it is commonly believed that people who identify themselves as Han employ ritual masters (commonly known as daogong 道公) who use texts, while those who view themselves as Li employ the service of geba (no applicable Chinese characters) who do not. This paper argues that the use of Chinese ritual texts implies that the specialist possessing them belongs to a larger religious movement, while those specialists without texts emphasize their own powers as well as those of the masters who instructed them. At the same time, however, my historical and field research indicates that the use of texts has been spreading throughout the Five Finger Mountain region throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, thereby prompting significant changes towards hybrid rituals and the denial of any Li connection. While the ethnic differentiation (minzu shibie 民族識別) campaigns beginning in the 1950s have promoted a sense of ethnic identity, the growing use of written texts indicates that Li ritual practices have been converging with those of the Han.     

Barossa Night: cohesion in the British Army officer corps

Contrasting the classical explanation of military group cohesion as sustained by interpersonal bonds, recent scholars have highlighted the importance of ritualized communication, training and drills in explaining effective military performance in professional armies. While this has offered a welcome addition to the cohesion literature and a novel micro‐sociological method of examining cohesion, its primary evidential base has been combat groups. Indeed, despite their prominent role in directing operations over the past decade, the British Army's officer corps has received relatively little attention from sociologists during this period. No attempt has been made to explain cohesion in the officer corps. Using a similar method to recent cohesion scholars, this paper seeks to address this imbalance by undertaking a micro‐sociology of one ritual in particular: ‘Barossa Night’ in the Royal Irish Regiment. Firstly, it draws on the work of Durkheim to examine how cohesion amongst the officer corps is created and sustained through a dense array of practises during formal social rituals. It provides evidence that the use of rituals highlights that social solidarity is central to understanding officer cohesion. Secondly, following Hockey's work on how private soldiers negotiate order, the paper shows how this solidarity in the officer corps is based on a degree of negotiated order and the need to release organizational tensions inherent in a strictly hierarchical rank structure. It highlights how the awarding of gallantry medals can threaten this negotiated order and fuel deviancy. In examining this behaviour, the paper shows that even amongst an officer class traditionally viewed as the elite upholders of organizational discipline, the negotiation of rank and hierarchy can be fluid. How deviant behaviour is later accepted and normalized by senior officers indicates that negotiated order is as important to understanding cohesion in the British Army's officer corps as it is amongst private soldiers.     

Ritual,Change and Psychotherapy

Symptomatic behavior often appears or is initially perceived during transitional stages in the life cycle when changes in behavior and relationships are culturally appropriate. Symptomatic behavior legitimates lack of change in the relationships of the symptomatic individual and those in his or her social context. By this it provides a pseudo-solution to the universal problem of dependency and autonomy (Sluzki & Vernon, 1971), which must be solved by individuals in every society. Many non-Western societies have rites of passage (van Gennep, 1960) to ritualistically mark significant transition. The performance of these rituals helps individuals change their position in the social context while at the same time validating the context. Rites of passage are characterized by paradoxical communications. The paradoxical structure of these rituals will be described and implications for the use of ritual in family therapy will be suggested using a case example as illustration.