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- Convenors:
-
Katri Ratia
(Fribourg University)
Camille Liederman (University of Fribourg)
Send message to Convenors
- Chairs:
-
Katri Ratia
(Fribourg University)
Camille Liederman (University of Fribourg)
- Discussants:
-
Katri Ratia
(Fribourg University)
Camille Liederman (University of Fribourg)
- Format:
- Panel
- Location:
- Epsilon room
- Sessions:
- Friday 8 September, -
Time zone: Europe/Vilnius
Short Abstract:
The panel proposes examining rituals as techniques in themselves, and ritual techniques as purposeful and instrumental processes, focusing on examples of different ritual techniques and technology in the ritual context.
Long Abstract:
Ritual can be seen as a way of doing things, a technique, in itself. Furthermore, ritual practices involve techniques in several manners. On one hand, rituals involve prescribed techniques through the specified ways of performing ritual acts. On another, ritual practices include material and immaterial culture, and the skills involved in the use of culture or the manipulation of objects and materials. Ritual techniques can be observed in the contexts of ritual tradition, or ritual creativity.
In recent research literature, ritual techniques have encompassed themes as varied as body techniques, techniques of the self, magical techniques, healing techniques, psychological techniques, techniques of commensurability, and symbolic techniques, just to mention a few. In addition, media and digital media technologies are becoming a common component of ritual, adding another layer into the technicality of ritual. In general, looking at ritual as a technique and discerning specific techniques within ritual highlights ideas of ritual’s instrumentality and its potential purposefulness, both as regards to the ritual actors, and within research approaches.
Ritual techniques can be seen as actions addressing the religious, social, physiological and psychological realities, and they have an immediate relationship with the forms, functions and meanings given to ritual, and ideas regarding ritual efficacy or orthopraxy, offering a rich analytical lens into examining rituals and their contexts. The proposed panel aims at bringing together papers discussing different examples of ritual techniques and technology in the ritual context. The examples need not to be limited to explicitly religious ritual.
Suggested topics for papers in this panel include (but are not limited to): ritual as a technique in itself, innovative ritual techniques, instrumentality of ritual techniques, technology in the ritual context, ritual techniques and material culture, creative ritual techniques, traditions of ritual techniques, mastering ritual techniques, and psychological, social and body techniques in ritual.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 8 September, 2023, -Paper short abstract:
Several religious practices aim for a transformation of the body. Their ritual structure translates cultural values into a transitional mechanism that enables the transformation of the body and these practices should thus be viewed as technologies – of transformation and of communication.
Paper long abstract:
There exist several bodily religious practices across various traditions that are structured as an individual ritual and that have the transformation of self and the body as goal. Examples of such rituals include alchemical or tantric practices. Common elements in these transformation practices can be creating a sacred space, existence of body-deities, microcosm-macrocosm analogy, directing the circulation of breath and other substances in the body, inner ascent and cosmic journey, and eventually changes in the physical body.
These practices are not only techniques but they should be viewed as technologies. This can be illustrated by Daoist neidan alchemy, where traditional alchemical instruments have been transferred into human physiology and the body itself becomes the alchemy laboratory. The presentation will argue that it is the ritual structure that translates cultural values into a transitional mechanism that enables the transformation of the human body.
The ritual in these practices is not only a technology of transformation that produces a qualitatively new state of existence but also a communication technology. By translating cultural values into bodily practices such as movement or breathing, it also communicates the teachings of a religious tradition in a nonverbal and non-symbolic way. Viewing the ritual as technology enables thus to analyze the link between bodily religious practices and respective teachings.
Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses the different aspects of such healing ritual techniques that present pain as if it was a material object. The phenomenon is studied from the viewpoint of the late 19th century Finno-Karelian healing tradition.
Paper long abstract:
In the late 19th century Finland and Karelia, traditional healing was a wide and diverse field, and there were many different kinds of semi-specialists in the field. Ritualistic healing was one aspect of the healing tradition, and this kind of healing included, for instance, incantations, bathing in the sauna, symbolic gestures, and different kinds of ointments. Healing rituals were usually performed by a ritual specialist, the tietäjä (“the one who knows” in Finnish and Karelian).
In this paper, I concentrate on the ritual techniques that were performed to reduce and treat pain. Different ritual techniques aimed to provide a meaningful and understandable conception of pain for the patient. Quite often, these techniques included some kind of “materialization” of pain, i.e., treating pain as if it was a material object. For instance, pain could be symbolically removed from the patient and bound in a tree. The ritual incantations supported the idea about material pain by presenting it as something that could be collected and stored by a mythic Lass of Pain (Kiputyttö or Kivutar).
This paper discusses the different aspects of this kind of healing ritual techniques. In these healing performances, the ritual techniques reflect both empiric experiences and traditional knowledge which includes mythic knowledge as well. I discuss how this kind of techniques could support the healing process, for instance by activating the placebo effect, and what kinds of meanings such techniques provide for the general understanding of pain in this socio-cultural context.
Paper short abstract:
In this paper, I focus on religiously motivated environmental rituals and the perspectives that Rappaportian ritual approach provide for examining them. I am particularly interested in the innovative nature and strategic functions of these rituals.
Paper long abstract:
The environmental crisis has challenged faith traditions to take a stand and act both globally and locally. Statements and action build on reinterpretations of tradition, which also produce a variety of ritual applications. Environmental rituals, for example, deal with the grief and anxiety caused by environmental crisis or seek to have a concrete impact on local environmental problems.
Anthropologist Roy Rappaport examined religious environmental rituals, firstly, as a way of regulating ecological balance. Secondly, he saw religiously motivated environmental rituals as a way of changing human thinking and behavior in an era of environmental crisis. These perspectives can be applied in at least three ways: first, by looking at how rituals are used in religious communities that are directly dependent on the natural environment; second, by examining how religious communities use rituals in various situations related to environmental issues; and third, by focusing on how Rappaport's ideas could be used to engage in environmental action. In this paper, I focus on religiously motivated environmental rituals and the perspectives that Rappaportian ritual approach provide for examining them. I am particularly interested in the innovative nature and strategic functions of these rituals.
As examples, I use the struggle of the Canadian Mi'kmaq indigenous community over the fate of their sacred mountain, the environmental applications of Hindu Ganga Aarti rituals, and the ordination ritual of Thai monks, who ordinate trees under threat of felling into a Buddhist monastic community
Paper short abstract:
The paper explores the sonic worlds of women electronic music composers and artists, in both Asia and the West, where technological improvisation is used to mediate perceived other- or inner-worldly experiences and challenge patterns of exclusion.
Paper long abstract:
In this paper, I contend that electronic music constitutes a productive, yet under-researched, area for understanding the synergies between technology, corporeality, materiality, and spirituality. I focus on the field of avant-garde electronic music, more specifically on some of its pioneering women artists from different parts of the globe. The latter provide a valuable resource for exploring the capacity of new sound and music technologies to mediate the perceived other- or inner-worldly, and to do spiritual, in addition to cultural and political, work. Significantly, improvisation is a hallmark of their soundscapes, and an emancipatory act for many. In seeking to discern the religious roots and spiritual inflections of these women electronic composers and performers the researcher must navigate a range of resources whether documentaries (Sisters with Transistors, 2021), publications, recordings, interviews, networks, festivals, websites or social media. Another (exciting) challenge for religion scholars venturing into these new sonic territories is to analyze the discursive framing--whether transhuman, transcendent, immanent, sublime, transformative, meditative, or mystical--for what this conveys about gendered cross-cultural engagements with the post-secular.