The concept of harg - an archeology historical discussion: This study is an attempt to deal with the concept harg known from the historical sources in the north and its use in the field of archeology. Harg has come to be used in connection with cult, religion and to interpret ritual sites within archeology. Still it leaves much unanswered of what it contains or sometimes applies. By focusing on empirical sources from several disciplines such as language and place-name research, history, religion and archeology, which have all contributed in various ways to the discussion of harg. I will try to find out what harg really is, based on the different interpretations regarding harg, and how harg as a concept is used in connection with interpretations of archaeological findings.

Magister Artium - MA / The mbopo institution, popularly known as the “fattening room” is a cultural rite of passage for young virgins, who are being prepared for marriage among the Ibibio/Efik people of southern Nigeria. It is a complex cultural institution which marked the change of status from girlhood to nubile womanhood in Ibibio/Efik culture. This study examines the practice of mbopo ritual among the Ibibio/Efik people across the previous century. Through an engaged and detailed visual analysis, the study argues that in the first decade of the 20th century, the mbopo ritual had a degree of vibrancy with an attached sense of secrecy and spiritual mystery. But between 1920 and the present, this vibrancy and spiritual undertone has been subtly but progressively compromised. A buildup of tension on the ritual by modern forces, not only of the outside missionaries, but also indigenous converts set in motion a process that would eventually transform the ritual from a framework of an actual cultural practice into the realms of “cultural reinvention” and re-rendering. Feminist critiques of the 1980s and the 1990s led to the popular awareness of the damaging impact of clitoridectomy, just one core aspect of the ritual. As a direct result, clitoridectomy was outlawed across the country, leaving mbopo to be seen as a morally suspect practice. In recent year, the once vibrant, secret and spiritually grounded rite of seclusion for nubile women has been reimagined and reinvented through the public display in art, painting, cultural dance troupe, music and television shows.

The present work explores the relationships Candomblé followers interweave with the environment and with animals through ritual offerings and sacrificial practices. As a self-defined “religion of nature”, Afro-Brazilian Candomblé can be described as the cult of the orixás, deities whose origins can be traced to West Africa and who are connected with the natural elements in the landscape. The complex use of food items, other elements and animals in the rituals makes it necessary to investigate the role of these elements in Candomblé cosmology and to take into account emic perceptions of human-environment relations. Ritual practices develop around culturally determined ways of relating and perceiving the environment but they are also subjected to modifications and innovations. By presenting detailed ethnographic accounts of Candomblé rituals in Brazil but also in Italy (where a Candomblé house has been active for two decades), this thesis demonstrates how the ritual structure can be understood as a pattern that follows variations based on the needs of humans, but also on the tastes of the invisible entities and the agency of animals. The renegotiation of these elements takes the form of a dialogic process between the different parts. Ritual offerings and sacrifices can be understood not only as a form of feeding and exchanging favours with the orixás but also as a form of communication between the visible and the invisible world. Moreover, the constant correspondences and deferrals between humans, animals and orixás in the chants, in the mythology and the ritual proceedings allow the possibility of understanding animal sacrfice as being performed not only for the benefit, but also as a substitute, of a human life. Lastly, this thesis shows how ritual change is also expressed by the incorporation of contemporary notions of environmental ethics and pollution, allowing for new understandings of natural landscapes as a social and historical construct.

<p>U naj&scaron;irem smislu, disertacija se bavi biolo&scaron;kim, psiholo&scaron;kim i dru&scaron;tvenim karakteristikama rituala kao evolucione univerzalije, koje se manifestuju kako kod ljudi, tako i kod ne-ljudskih vrsta. Cilj disertacije jeste utvrđivanje funkcionalnih i konceptualnih granica njegovog istraživanja i razvoj sociolo&scaron;ki zasnovane, integrisane teorije rituala. U uvodnom poglavlju analiziraju se problemi određenja rituala i razgraničenje između pojmova rituala, ritualizacije, aktivnosti nalik ritualu, obreda i performansa. Pored toga, analizirana su i etolo&scaron;ka izučavanja rituala kod ne-ljudskih vrsta, razvoj i funkcije ljudskih rituala kao proizvoda biolo&scaron;ke i kulturne evolucije.<br />Drugo poglavlje posvećeno je analizi telesnih dimenzija ritualnog pona&scaron;anja. Najpre su obrađeni neurobiolo&scaron;ki mehanizmi kao determinante rituala, dok je u drugom i trećem delu poglavlja pažnja posvećena biogenetičkom strukturalizmu i neurosociologiji kao integrativnim pristupima. Biogenetički strukturalizam je predstavljen kao inicijalni poku&scaron;aj prevladavanja ograničenja dominantnih paradigmi u izučavanju rituala, integracijom biolo&scaron;kih, antropolo&scaron;kih, psiholo&scaron;kih, fenomenolo&scaron;kih i neurolo&scaron;kih saznanja o ritualizovanim oblicima pona&scaron;anja i načinima na koje ta pona&scaron;anja indukuju izmenjena stanja svesti. Neurosociolo&scaron;ki teorijski program predstavljen je kao novi korak u stvaranju intergrisane teorije rituala, kojim se analizira složen, dinamički odnos između mozga i okruženja, uz izbegavanje svakog vida redukcionizma.<br />Psiholo&scaron;ki mehanizmi kao determinante ritualnog pona&scaron;anja analizirani su u trećem poglavlju. Analiza je usmerena na teorije koje spajaju kognitivizam i adaptacionizam u obja&scaron;njenju mentalnih predstava i bave se fenomenima selekcije i kulturne transmisije, ali govori se i o složenom odnosu između rituala, spoznaje i emocija. Predstavljen je odnos specifične dinamike rituala i psiho-fiziolo&scaron;kih procesa i reakcija organizma koje su indukovane njome, jer razumeti ritual između ostalog znači objasniti složen odnos uzmeđu uma i tela.<br />Četvrto poglavlje bavi se sociolo&scaron;kim konceptualizacijama rituala i procesom transformacije sociolo&scaron;kog i antropolo&scaron;kog izučavanja od kraja devetnaestog veka, pa sve do dana&scaron;njih dana. Inicijalni poku&scaron;aji stvaranja i isticanja važnosti interdisciplinarnosti za razumevanje ritualnog pona&scaron;anja i polivalentnosti rituala razmatraju se kroz rad Emila Dirkema, Bronislava Malinovskog, Alfreda Radklif-Brauna, Arnolda Van Genepa, Maksa Glukmana,<br />viii<br />Viktora Tarnera, Meri Daglas, Roja Rapaporta, Kliforda Gerca, Ervinga Gofmana, Rendala Kolinsa i Džefrija Aleksandera.<br />U petom i zaključnom poglavlju obrađeni su izazovi i problemi koji se pojavljuju u domenu zasnivanja integrisane teorije rituala i predlaže se rekonceptualizacija sociolo&scaron;kih teorija rituala u svetlu neusociologije. Ukazano je na potrebu i važnost interdiciplinarnog proučavanja rituala, kako radi unapređenja sociolo&scaron;kog znanja u ovoj oblasti proučavanja, tako i unapređenja epistemolo&scaron;kih mogućnosti sociologije uop&scaron;te. Istražujući socijalnu dimenziju funkcionisanja mozga i spajajući funkcionisanje mozga sa pona&scaron;anjem i procesima sopstva, neurosociologija je predstavljena kao pogodan teorijski okvir za obja&scaron;njavanje složenog odnosa između mozga, prirodnog i socijalnog okruženja.<br />Ključne reči: ritual, ritualizacija, dimenzije rituala, interdisciplinarnost, neurosociologija, integrisana sociolo&scaron;ka teorija.</p>

Consensus scholarship notes that the ethics described in the Confucian textual corpus focuses its attention primarily on concrete relationships, specific roles, and reciprocal duties. This has occasioned concern about whether Confucian ethics can offer adequate moral guidelines for interactions between people who have enjoyed no prior contact. In response, this dissertation suggests that early Confucianism does guide interactions with strangers, but that this guidance is to be found less in its ethical concepts or moral precepts than in its embodied ritual practices. To substantiate this claim, I carefully apply theories drawn from the fields of cognitive science, cognitive philosophy, American pragmatism, and ritual theory to several early Confucian texts: the Analects, Mencius, Xunzi, and the ritual manuals of the Liji and the Yili. From pragmatism and cognitive philosophy, I assemble lenses of conceptual and pre-conceptual meaning and use them to examine the effects of ritual practice on the creation of group boundaries and the generation of solidarity. In so doing, I reveal that the solidarity generated by embodied practice and physical co-presence shapes the boundaries and structure of early Confucian groups as much as concepts or shared values. I further outline the neural and psychological processes by which the physicality of Confucian ritual practice creates pre-conceptual solidarity, then highlight the ways that solidarity is framed and given a meaningful direction by the varied Confucian exemplars. Ultimately, I demonstrate that mutual engagement in ritual practice allows strangers to bond quickly, without the benefit of prior relationship or shared proposition. This, I argue, is the heart of the Confucian treatment of strangers. Ritual practice simultaneously creates a relationship between new contacts and energizes that relationship with strong, pre-conceptually-generated solidarity. This dissertation also analyzes a number of related topics, including the relationship between ritual practice and group boundaries and the influence of the body upon concepts and categorization. In its broadest goals, this study offers insight into the rich character of early Confucian physicality, suggests novel guidelines for the analysis of contemporary Confucianism, and reflects possible ways in which solidarity might be formed between members of groups with different value orientations.

Bereavement, while universal, is experienced and expressed uniquely; it is both ultimate and particular. As the predominant social expression of grief, funerals are purported to be waning and/or transitioning to emergent, less conventional ceremonial forms. In this research, the possible salutary utility of funerals is outlined, and trends relative to the cost, nature (type), and prevalence of funeral services are examined relative to an extant data set from two funeral homes of shared ownership in northeast Tennessee. This data analysis of specific funeral trends in south central Appalachia is juxtaposed against the broader backdrop of current theoretical, clinical, and socio-cultural understandings of bereavement, grief, and mourning.

abstract: This thesis examines the jazz jam session’s function in the constitution of jazz scenes as well as the identities of the musicians who participate in them. By employing ritual and performance studies theories of liminality, I demonstrate ways in which jazz musicians, jam sessions, and other social structures are mobilized and transformed during their social and musical interactions. I interview three prominent members of the jazz scene in the greater Phoenix area, and incorporate my experience as a professional jazz musician in the same scene, to conduct a contextually and socially embedded analysis in order to draw broader conclusions about jam sessions in general. In this analysis I refer to other ethnomusicologists who research improvisation, jazz in ritual context, and interactions, such as Ingrid Monson, Samuel Floyd, Travis Jackson, and Paul Berliner, as well as ideas proposed by phenomenologically adjacent thinkers such as Gilles Deleuze, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Karen Barad. This thesis attempts to contribute to current jam session research in fields such as ethnomusicology and jazz studies by offering a perspective on jam sessions based on phenomenology and process philosophy, concluding that the jam session is an essential mechanism in the ongoing social and musical developments of jazz musicians and their scene. I also attempt to continue and develop the discourse surrounding theories of liminality in performance and ritual studies by underscoring the web of relations in social structures that are brought into contact with one another during the liminal performances of their acting agents. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Music 2019

This dissertation offers an ethnographic account of "the world's largest annual human migration": the family reunion ritual practiced by hundreds of millions of Chinese rural-to-urban migrant workers, who work in cities and travel back to the countryside during the lunar New Year (the Spring Festival) to reunite with family members. The formation and practice of this ritual is situated in the particular historical moment of China's modernization when rural migrants have gained the freedom to leave the countryside but are met with difficulties in settling in the city and becoming urban citizens. Although migrant workers have contributed directly to China's burgeoning economy, without an institutionalized system that provides them security and full social rights, they experience prolonged liminality between the city and the countryside. The Spring Festival reunion offers migrant workers a once-in-a-year chance to achieve family unity, to reconnect with scattered kith and kin, and to temporarily actualize a sense of normalcy and continuity in the rural community. Drawing on theories of cultural communication, ritual, and family communication, I conceptualize the reunion ritual as a form of "lifeworld re-embedment" on China's pathway to individualization--a social process that engages in cultural resources to cope with the risks of modernity, bridging the disjuncture between the individual and the community. Built on interviews with migrant workers and participant observation of family reunions in a village in Central China, this dissertation examines the ritual forms, meanings, and functions of the reunion. I first examine the ritualization of the Spring Festival reunion at a national level, focusing on the spectacular movement of passengers during the Spring Festival travel season. I argue that the Spring Festival homecoming has transformed from a transportation issue to a pilgrimage-like national ritual, projecting an image of the collective pursuit of family cohesion and community integration. As a response to the unequal access to urban citizenship, returning to one's countryside home has also become an alternative way for migrant workers to claim their identities and to find a sense of belonging. In communicating about the family reunion, migrant workers employ culturally distinctive languages of place attachment and collectively used discourses of displacement to construct the meaning of home, separation, and unification. In addition, I explore family rituals performed during the reunion that help migrant workers reconnect with left-behind family members, fulfill family obligations, and create family unity. This study provides a more nuanced understanding of the paradoxical process of individualization in China, in which disembedded individuals have to depend on culturally bound integration provided by the institutions from which the disembedment occurs. In this process, ritual communication not only articulates the tension between the individual and the communal, but also functions as a powerful compensatory solution to the risks of family dislocation. By analyzing the Spring Festival reunion from a micro-level with a focus on how ritualized communication constructs, maintains, repairs, and changes social reality, this study also adds to the body of literature on cultural communication and family communication.

Thesis (MA. (Translation Studies and Linguistics)) --University of Limpopo, 2013 / Ngudo iyi yo sengulusa u via kha Tshivenḓa. Hu na nḓila nnzhi dzine u tenda kha u via ha itelwa zwone. U tenda kha u via ndi zwa ndeme kha mvelele ya Tshivenḓa. Fhedzi maitele aya a u via a vhonala a si avhuḓi, nahone a tshi khou lwiwa nao uri a fhele.

The overall purpose of this study was to assess family patterns in regard to food practices and family rituals that occur in all families. Specifically, four major purposes were considered in this study: (a) to learn more about generational food practices and how they are passed from one generation to the next, (b) to analyze demographic factors in relation to food related practices, (c) to understand the role of family ritual in family food practices, and (d) to learn how family food practices impact the dietary patterns for society at large. The data were obtained in February am March of 1986 from Idaho state University students via an 11-page questionnaire. The sample included 20 Young married couples with a child at least two years of age and both sets of their parents. Information was gathered from the grandparent generation by asking questions of the parent generation considering their home of origin. The major findings of this study were: 1. Parental example was the largest factor in food habits, with mothers having the greatest impact between the parents. When considering special eating styles and settings, mothers were more likely to pass information across generations than fathers. Mothers have been, and are still, the major menu planners and meal preparers; but fathers I influence on food habits has increased over time, especially when considering what is served to the family. Mothers desire more fixed meal scheduling than fathers or other family members. 2. The average time spent at meals has decreased over time, and saying grace at meals has increased across time. 3. The second generation was the most influential generation in celebrating holidays with special eating styles and patterns. 4. Televisions and microwave ovens are having a major impact on families over time. With increased ownership of microwaves, there is an increase of snacking instead of having regular meals. Television viewing at meal time has increased dramatically over time. A major implication of this study is to provide food and nutrition educational programs that teach all family members the central concepts that can be applied in the changing daily eating practices.