Le droit traditionnel était un système juridique co-religieux, où l’invisible et le sacréjouaient un rôle prépondérant. Le surnaturel et le droit existaient en une sorte d’osmose, l’un àcôté de l’autre. Le droit utilisait le surnaturel comme auxiliaire mais le réprimait aussi dansses aspects négatifs. Avec l’intrusion de la civilisation occidentale durant la période coloniale,le colonisateur va imposer au Gabon son droit malgré sa promesse de respecter les coutumeslocales.L’accession du Gabon à la souveraineté internationale s’est traduite également,lorsqu’il s’est agi de disposer des lois d’un Etat indépendant, par l’adoption quasi-totale desdroits d’inspiration occidentale dits droits modernes. Cependant, le législateur a, dans unecertaine mesure, oeuvré pour le maintien dans certains domaines des droits traditionnels.Toutefois, l’adaptation du droit moderne aux réalités sociales gabonaises ne va pas sans poserdes problèmes d’application auxquels il faudra apporter des solutions. Au niveau législatif, lelégislateur devra préciser autant que possible les lois par lui adoptées afin d’éviter desincriminations ouvertes. Au niveau juridico-judicaire, l’action des pouvoirs publics devras’opérer au niveau de la formation et de la mise en place des banques de données coutumières. / Traditional law was a legal system associated with religion where the invisible andsacred matters played key roles. The supernatural and Law mingled in some type of osmose.Law used supernaturalism as contingency on one hand on the other hand it was rejected dueto its negative aspects. The infiltration of western civilization in Gabon through the colonialsystem will build the path to establish the western legal system by pushing aside the locallegal system. The infiltration of western civilization during the colonial occupation, created aperfect path to introduce and to enforce western legal system in Gabon despite the promise torespect the local custom system.Furthermore, moving from a colonial time to the independent republic of Gabon fewlocal traditional laws have been kept and are being applied in some legal aspects, but most ofthe Gabonese legal architecture has been inspired by the western's modern laws.In addition, the adaptation of Modern Law on the Gabonese legal system has metsome inconsistency as far as its implementation and its enforcement are concerned. Thereforesome solutions can be provided.From the legislative point of view perspective, the legislator should be as precise aspossible on the adopted laws in order to avoid open criminality.From legal and judicial's view government should work on educating people anddevelo

L’objectif de cette thèse est d’analyser une vaste collection de textes rituels taoïstes, le Guangcheng yizhi, qui a été compilé dans la province du Sichuan au 18e siècle. Cette collection est le fondement d’une tradition liturgique locale toujours vivante. La thèse aborde cette collection à la fois par une approche historique, en donnant le contexte social et religieux et en retraçant le processus de la compilation, de l’impression et de la diffusion, et par une approche de travail sur le terrain pour comprendre sa mise en pratique. Les deux premiers chapitres introduisent l’histoire du taoïsme au Sichuan depuis la dynastie des Qing jusqu’aujourd’hui, et plus précisément l’histoire textuelle du Guangcheng yizhi. Les chapitres suivants développent l’analyse de la tradition Guangcheng en développant la notion de "taoïste Guangcheng", et en explorant la typologie et la structure de ses rituels. Il s’intéresse à la construction d’un grand rituel par la combinaison de rites indépendants, et ce que ce processus nous apprend de la carte mentale que les taoïstes Guangcheng ont du répertoire de leur tradition. Enfin, le chapitre 6 développe le cas des rituels de repaiement de la dette de vie (huanshousheng) dans la tradition Guangcheng. / The basic theme of this dissertation is to understand a large collection of Taoist ritual texts from Sichuan, Guangcheng yizhi, first compiled in the 18th century and forming the basis of a living local ritual tradition. The dissertation uses both the historical approach (looking at the history of compiling, printing and using the collection) and fieldwork. The first two chapters introduce the history of Taoism in Sichuan since the Qing dynasty, and of the Guangcheng texts in particular. Then it explores the Guangcheng tradition developing notions such as “Guangcheng Taoist”, and the structure and typology of rituals. It analyses the building of a grand ritual and its “rundown” made of many smaller rites; this sheds light on the mental map of Taoists as they appropriate the shared ritual repertoire of their tradition. Finally chapter 6 analyses the ritual of repayment of life debt (huanshousheng) in the Guangcheng tradition.

This thesis examines the character of Middle Neolithic to Middle Bronze Age (3600-1200 BC) funerary and ritual practices in Wales. This was based on the analysis of chronological (radiocarbon determinations and artefactual evidence), contextual (monument types, burial types, deposit types) and osteological (demographic and pyre technology) data from a comprehensive dataset of excavated human bone deposits from funerary and ritual monuments. Funerary rites in the Middle Neolithic (c. 3600-2900 BC) sometimes involved the deposition of single inhumation or cremation burials in inconspicuous pit graves. After a hiatus in the Late Neolithic (c. 2900-2400 BC), formal burials re-appeared in the Chalcolithic (c. 2500-2200 BC) with Beaker burials. However, formal burials remained relatively rare until the Early Bronze Age (c. 2200-1700 BC) when burial mounds, which often contained multiple burials, became the dominant type of funerary monument. Burial rites for this period most commonly involved the cremation of the dead. Whilst adult males were over-represented in inhumations, no age- or gender-based differences were identified in cremation burials. Patterns in grave good associations suggest that perceived age- and-gender-based identities were sometimes expressed through the selection of objects to be placed in the graves. The tradition of cremation burials carried on into the Middle Bonze Age (c. 1700-1200 BC), although formal burials became less common. Circular enclosures (henges, timber circles, stone circles, pit circles), several of which were associated with cremated human bone deposits, represented the most persistent tradition of ritual monuments, with new structures built from the end of the fourth millennium BC to the middle of the second millennium BC in Wales.

The eleven illuminated missals at the core of this thesis share a distinctive scale that sets them apart from the majority of other decorated missals. Their scale was a key factor in the visual and ritual experiences they offered their patrons and their earliest users. Missals made in the later fourteenth century and the early fifteenth century included some of the physically largest examples of this genre of book ever made. Containing the text of the late medieval Mass, and read by its priest during the ritual’s performance, they were essential components of the ritual that resulted in the physical embodiment of Christ in the Eucharist. Large missals were a distinctive variation of the Mass book. However, existing scholarship has not offered sufficient reasons for a wide-ranging phenomenon of large missal patronage and manufacture. This thesis argues that the scale of these books was a central rhetorical device that magnified their significance and reception. At the heart of this adoption of the large-scale format was the aggrandisement of the Mass itself, reaffirming its place as the central rite of the Christian Church and contemporary devotions about the ritual. Study of these eleven manuscripts suggests that their exceptional size and the treatment of their interior designs supporting their visuality were issues for this particular period. Explanations for the adoption of large Mass books are given by examining their visibility in the Mass, as part of what is termed here the ‘altarscape’. Having established this, this thesis offers reasons for why patrons and clerics used a cumbersome large format for the text of the ritual. The missals unmistakeably reasserted orthodox values in the face of challenges to conventional understanding of the Eucharist from those holding non-conforming views. Simultaneously, the emphasis on expanded proportions arguably reflects contemporary practices of commemoration where being remembered was an essential part of dying well. And finally, the interior and exterior scale of these books was used for new devotional themes, including the Virgin.

The attacks of 11 September 2001 have had a profound impact for many, altering lives, perceptions, politics and policies. The last decade saw the construction of numerous memorials commemorating the events across the United States. Most prominent is the National 9/11 Memorial in New York City at Ground Zero. Highly contested in its planning and building stages, the memorial site was designed to be a national symbol of mourning, remembrance and resiliency, and has since become one of the city's most popular tourist attractions. This thesis casts the matter of memorialising 9/11 as a performance of remembering. It utilises an analytical frame that draws from theoretical resources of collective memory and performance studies to examine how and by whom public remembrances of the event are framed, performed and maintained. Theories of social remembering render it an active process. A performance lens used analytically allows for a recognition of commemorative practices not as a mode of representation, but rather as a doing, (en)acting and interacting in the moment. By understanding public remembrance as performance, this thesis explores the implications of thinking about public memory in those terms. Through ethnographic methods the research unpacks the doing of public memory in three scenarios, each with their own setting and cast of characters, and interprets how, if and when individuals subscribe to the public and/or official memory of the events being memorialised. The first is set at the 9/11 memorial. Although the performances at the memorial site occur in an institutionalised, scripted and choreographed environment, the bodily (en)acting of and at the site can shift complex boundaries and commemorative narratives. The second provides the example of commemorative walking/ running events as performed remembering. These public processions are ritual-like (re)enactments that solidify and reaffirm the politicised national commemorative master narrative of 9/11. Lastly, the annual ritual of commemoration on the anniversary of 9/11 highlights and intensifies the separation of official and vernacular public memory and shows how in both settings organisers and actors utilise embodied performance strategies to gain or regain visibility in the public sphere.

Whether it be more recent public tragedies or more distant death related events, sites and gatherings associated with death and disaster present an opportunity to explore the social phenomenon described as "dark tourism". To study this social phenomenon, the current literature on dark tourism widely acknowledges that a multi-disciplinary approach is required and that much work remains to be done to fully appreciate the phenomenon. This thesis draws upon the sociology of death to consider the dark tourism experience as part of a society's death system, and it draws upon a dynamic theory of ritual interaction from the sociology of emotions to consider the dark tourism visitor experience as a ritual performance. The thesis proposes that the visitor experience at some dark tourism sites may be usefully analyzed within the frameworks of inquiry proposed by Kastenbaum's (2001) death system concept together with a dynamic theory of emotion and ritual interactions proposed by Durkheim (1995) and Collins (2004). Specifically, this thesis proposes that where visitors have emotional "experiences of involvement" with the death event which is represented at the site, they may focus their attention and emotion on site components to engage in ritual interactions, which produce a momentarily shared new (emotional) reality that, in turn, may generate feelings of "solidarity" and "positive emotional energy" as an outcome of the visitor experience. These new realities and outcomes may serve to mediate the death event for visitors and to strengthen the social order. At present, there is very little theoretical work, and much less empirical research, to support this approach within the existing dark tourism literature. This thesis attempts to address part of the gap in dark tourism knowledge and in the study of this phenomenon by the sociology of death. These theories are considered in the light of research conducted in a single qualitative case study at the 9/11 Memorial site in New York City. Interviews, observations and diarizing were carried out to identify the motivations, interpretations and experiences of 32 visitors, (including guides and volunteers) at the site. Most visitors to the 9/11 Memorial site had prior emotional connections or "experiences of involvement" of some type with the death event. Many visitors expressed that their motivation to visit the site was based on a sense of "obligation" or "duty" and reported interpretations of the visitor experience that are consistent with taking part in what Durkheim described as a piacular rite. Visitors focused their emotions and interacted with components of the site in such a way that four of the critical functions of the death system were identified in operation. Most visitors reported that through their visitor interactions they (a) found the site to be a (sacred) place of actual or symbolic disposition of the dead; (b) received social support or consolidation; (c) interpreted the site in a way that made sense of the death event; and (d) took away from the site some form of moral or social guidance. These interactions were observed to have created a form of collective effervescence that made visitors' feel that they were part of something larger, a feeling that represented a shared new (emotional) reality. In turn, visitors reported that the visitor experience at the site created increased feelings of solidarity and calm or confidence or energy - or what Collins describes as emotional energy - in their personal and collective lives. The thesis concludes that the role of dark tourism as a mediating institution between the living and the death event may sometimes extend beyond the mediation of death anxiety and the purchase of ontological security as proposed by Stone (2012). Through the ritual performance of dark tourism, a mediation of, by and through emotions takes place, the result of which is that the individual and collective self of visitors may be relieved from the negative emotions aroused by the death event and begin to feel a new sense of solidarity and emotional energy. Indeed, the death event itself may be transformed from something evil into something that is sacred; from something that brought death and chaos, into something that strengthens social order.

The Postclassic (pre-conquest) Nahua often performed displays of religious devotion. Usually involving stripping victims of their skin, flesh and internal organs, these public, state-sanctioned rites have been understood as astonishing, even exceptional, for their brutality. As a consequence, scholars have focused on human sacrifice at the steps of the Templo Mayor; ritual away from the imperial capital Tenochtitlan has remained very poorly understood. Where attempts have been made to understand regional practices, scholars have generally assumed binary distinctions between central versus periphery or state versus local. Existing studies fail to appreciate Nahua ritual as fluid and dynamic, instead casting ceremonial behaviour across space as unrelated and fundamentally oppositional. Integrating the ethnohistorical and archaeological records, this thesis takes understandings of Nahua ritual in new directions by examining the relationship between the public arena, the sacred landscape and domestic spheres. Crucially, this thesis argues that rituals were sensitive to circumstantial pressures and personal imperatives, across hierarchies,space and time. In so doing, this study suggests a more fluid model for understanding Nahua ritual than binary distinctions can allow. A lack of appreciation for variation or agency in ritual performance has perpetuated the understanding that the Nahua were trapped in a cycle of ferocious ritualism which left little room for critical thought. Using alphabetic, pictorial and archaeological evidence for a rounded perspective, this thesis examines the intersection between official structures and personal agency to question the notion that all Nahuas unthinkingly repeated human sacrifice and other ritual bloodshed. This study argues that the household was a crucial arena for the normalisation of the blood debt which permitted the acceptance of mass public human sacrifice. This thesis finds that, within the Nahua's symbiotic worldview, activities of the temple, mountain and household rituals were mutually supporting. Moreover, it is shown that the Nahuas chose to adapt their rituals throughout the years, to suit individual preferences and environmental circumstances. Taken as a whole, my findings suggest that the Nahuas sought to control their daily existence by adapting rituals to assuage violent and impulsive supernatural forces.

Submitted by Alisson Mota (alisson.davidbeckam@gmail.com) on 2015-06-08T20:49:11Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação - Anna Paula de Carvalho.pdf: 1364833 bytes, checksum: df9d1b8f4f1135ce685077dd1d704f07 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Divisão de Documentação/BC Biblioteca Central (ddbc@ufam.edu.br) on 2015-06-09T13:41:15Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação - Anna Paula de Carvalho.pdf: 1364833 bytes, checksum: df9d1b8f4f1135ce685077dd1d704f07 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-06-09T13:41:15Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação - Anna Paula de Carvalho.pdf: 1364833 bytes, checksum: df9d1b8f4f1135ce685077dd1d704f07 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-09-21 / CNPQ - Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / This study is of a socio-historical nature, utilizing a qualitative approach which has as its ob-jective graduation ceremonies of the Nursing School of Manaus. The following objectives were delineated: to unveil the meaning of graduation ceremonies to the graduates who partici-pate in them, describe the object symbolism of the graduation ceremony and describe the changes which have occurred in graduation ceremonies, from the graduates‟ point of view. The time period within which this study is focused spans the years from 1955 to 2010. The primary sources utilized were, principally, photographs of graduations, in addition to written documents (the records of the ceremony) and interviews with graduates. A detailed analysis of the information took place using the BARDIN technique for content analysis. The results showed that, to graduates, graduation ceremonies mean victory, personal accomplishment, personal and professional achievement. Changes occurred in object symbolism principally with regard to garments, the justification being that the Nursing School of Manaus from 1955 to 1997 was administrated by the Special Service Foundation of Public Health – FSESP De-partment of Health and, in 1998, became part of the Federal University of Amazonas – UFAM administrated by the Department of Education. We concluded that analyzing the grad-uation ceremonies of the Nursing School of Manaus from 1955 to 2010 contributed to pre-serving for regional nursing the guiding light of our profession, showing the symbolic impact that traditions exert on the fields of health and education. / Trata-se de um estudo de natureza histórico-social, valendo-se de abordagem qualitativa que tem como objeto os rituais de formatura da Escola de Enfermagem de Manaus-EEM. Os obje-tivos traçados foram: desvelar o significado do ritual de formatura para os egressos, descrever as representações objetais do ritual de formatura e descrever as mudanças ocorridas nos rituais de formatura, na compreensão dos egressos. A delimitação temporal do estudo abrange o período de 1955 a 2010. As fontes primárias utilizadas foram, principalmente, as fotografias das formaturas, além dos documentos escritos (atas de formatura) e entrevista dos egressos. O exame analítico minucioso das informações foi procedido mediante a técnica de análise de conteúdo BARDIN. Os resultados evidenciaram que os rituais de formatura para os egressos significam vitória, realização pessoal, conquista pessoal e profissional. Mudanças ocorreram nas representações objetais principalmente referente aos trajes, justificadas porque a EEM de 1955 até 1997 era administrada pela Fundação Serviço Especial de Saúde Pública - FSESP (Ministério da Saúde) e a partir de 1998 passou para Universidade Federal do Amazonas – UFAM (Ministério da Educação). Concluiu-se na análise das formaturas da EEM, no período de 1955 a 2010, que o significado do ritual de formatura para os egressos foi a vitória, a reali-zação pessoal, a conquista e que as representações objetais tiveram mudanças conforme a tradição e desenvolvimento da instituição contribuindo para a preservação da enfermagem regional a luz da nossa profissão, mostrando o efeito simbólico que as tradições exercem no campo da saúde e da educação.

Investigamos abordagens de conceitos de física em aulas da educação básica, por professores de física em formação, do ponto de vista microssociológico dos encontros face a face e o papel das emoções nesses encontros. Analisamos como essas interações face a face ocorrem em aulas de física durante abordagens de conceitos e os rituais de interação colocados em jogo pelos professores em formação. Desta forma, por meio de um estudo de casos, identificamos alguns rituais de interação que ocorrem durante o processo de ensino e aprendizagem em aulas de física, identificados pelo clima emocional da classe. Utilizando uma abordagem fenomenológica e uma metodologia reflexiva na qual, a partir das observações in loco, focamos nossa atenção nas abordagens conceituais em aulas de física e utilizamos o clima emocional como heurístico na busca de eventos salientes. Nossa investigação mostra que abordagens conceituais não são apenas processos de trocas intelectuais, mas interações face a face características dos encontros sociais e repletas de emoções que constituem a linguagem dessas interações e podem alterar o clima emocional da classe. Constatamos que o professor, consciente ou inconscientemente, coloca em ação rituais de interação de salvamento da fachada como o aprumo e o processo de evitação, podendo até mesmo subverter conceitos científicos para salvar a fachada, o que evidencia a importância de uma atitude reflexiva na prática docente, para que o professor realize escolhas mais conscientes como utilizar mais processos corretivos. Propomos também a inovação na utilização de medidas do clima emocional por leigos como heurístico para encontrar eventos salientes, fundamentados na perspectiva das emoções básicas, na possibilidade de compartilhamento interacional das emoções e na sua relação com o clima emocional da classe. / We investigate approaches of physics concepts in basic education classes, by preservice physics teachers, from the micro-sociological point of view of face-to-face encounters and the role of emotions in these encounters. We analyze how these face-to-face interactions occur in physics classes during concept approaches and the interaction rituals put in place by the teachers in formation. In this way, through a case study, we identify some rituals of interaction that occur during the teaching and learning process in physics classes, identified by the emotional climate of the class. Using a phenomenological approach and a reflexive methodology in which, based on in situ observations, we focus our attention on conceptual approaches in physics classrooms and use the emotional climate as heuristic in the search for salient events. Our research shows that conceptual approaches are not only processes of intellectual exchanges, but face-to-face interactions characteristic of social encounters and full of emotions that constitute the language of these interactions and can alter the emotional climate of the class. We found that the teacher, consciously or unconsciously, put into action the interaction of salvage interaction of the facade as the mastery and avoidance process, and may even subvert scientific concepts to save the facade, which highlights the importance of a reflexive attitude in practice the teacher to make more conscious choices such as using more corrective processes. We also propose innovation in the use of measures of the emotional climate by lay people as heuristic to find salient events based on the perspective of basic emotions, the possibility of interactional sharing of emotions and their relation to the emotional climate of the class.

This thesis explores the imagery of funerary ritual that expresses the commemoration of both the living and the dead in the art of the marble cinerary memorials of the early Empire. This group of objects includes decorated marble artefacts associated with cremation burial between the Augustan period and the reign of Antoninus Pius: ash chests (or cineraria); ash altars and grave altars (with or without ash cavities); as well as round urns and vase-shaped urns. The iconography chosen for cinerary memorials by individuals in the early Empire reflects those individuals’ concerns to remember families and friends and in turn to be remembered. This research approaches the analysis of funerary iconography holistically as embedded in its contemporary culture, as opposed to the focus on the art of various sub-cultures of Roman society, seen in recent scholarship. Items with adequate ancient provenance are used to create a sample dataset that represents individuals that belong to a middle to high income-group of society, individuals that are united through their ability to pay and commission these memorials, rather than by class. The epigraphic material, studied alongside the tomb analysis, indicates that this socio-economic group included people of different legal statuses: slaves, freed-people, non-elites and known-elites. Thus we are able to examine how artistic motifs, and also imperial iconography and culture, were received by a cross-section of society. The use of semiotics allows symbols to be analysed in conjunction with other methods such as examining narration and abstraction. This theoretical framework results in the extraction of meaning from seemingly generic motifs and connects this interpretation with contemporaneous cultural norms. Using these methods and the sample dataset, the memorial typology is examined as indicative of a focal point for funerary cult, through the connection between the object as a replacement altar for ritual, and as a house or shrine for the commemoration of the dead. The iconography associated with the memorials therefore relates to both the ritual context (garlands and other ritualistic motifs) and to the object as a small building (the architectonic façade and doors; garden and vegetative iconography). It also relates to the commemoration of the dead (portraiture and honorific iconography) and in particular to the idea of the spirit or manes of the deceased as being immortalised through the memorial (underworld and mythological iconography). All elements, then, point to the focus of the object in funerary ritual which enables the living to honour the spirit of the deceased and acts as a memento of family and friends, bringing together both the living and the dead in art and inscription.