The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to investigate what approach or approaches the Church of Sweden have to meditation and how meditation is used by the parishes that this investigation is built upon. I have made two question formulations to meet this purposes:  Why does the parishes I have studied organize meditation?  How is meditation used and performed by the parishes in the Church of Sweden that I have studied? I have in order to answer this questions used a ritual theoretic model, composed of Peter Habbe´s theory as it is described in Att se och tänka med ritual – kontrakterande ritualer i de isländska släktsagorna and Caroline Humphrey and James Laidlaw´s ritual theory that is presented in their work The Archetypal Actions of Ritual – A theory of ritual illustrated by the Jain rite of worship. The theoretical model that I have put together consists of what is characterizing a ritual, and through this model I have examined my empirical material, the phenomenon of meditation and how it crystallizes in the context of the Church of Sweden. The empirical material consists of five interviews with five leaders of meditation in the Church of Sweden and three participative observations at three meditation occasions held by parishes in the Church of Sweden. The interviews are qualitative deep interviews that have a semi–structured nature. Based on this material, I have then typologized the phenomenon through my theoretical model and from there answered the research questions that my purpose demanded. The meditation in the parishes that I have visited in this study are very similar, and there is conformity among the parishes in order how the meditation is to be executed. The most differentiating inquiry among the parishes is why they are organizing meditation, if it is because the participants are to embrace the Christian faith, or if everyone is free to participate with the faith or non–faith he or she has got. In this question there is a split up in two groups among my informants, those who deem that the meditation has to have a pronounced Christian orientation, and those who deem that it isn´t possible to divide the meditation activity in confession or non–confession, and that it is up to everyone to decide the orientation of the meditation. / Denna c-uppsats har som syfte att undersöka vilket eller vilka förhållningsätt Svenska kyrkan har till aktiviteten meditation och hur den används inom de församlingar som ligger till grund för denna undersökning. För att möta denna föresats har jag formulerat två frågeställningar:  Varför anordnar de församlingar jag studerat meditation?  Hur används och utförs meditation av de församlingar i Svenska kyrkan jag studerat? För att besvara dessa frågor har jag använt mig av en ritualteoretisk modell, sammansatt av Peter Habbes teori som beskrivs i Att se och tänka med ritual – kontrakterande ritualer i de isländska släktsagorna samt Caroline Humphrey och James Laidlaws ritualteori som läggs fram i deras verk The Archetypal Actions of Ritual – A theory of ritual illustrated by the Jain rite of worship. Den teoretiska modell jag satt samman utifrån dessa teorier består av vad som karaktäriserar ett ritual och jag har genom denna undersökt mitt empiriska material och fenomenet meditation och hur det utkristalliserar sig i Svenska kyrkans kontext. Mitt empiriska material består av fem intervjuer med fem meditationsledare inom Svenska kyrkan samt tre deltagande observationer på tre meditationstillfällen anordnade av församlingar inom Svenska kyrkan. Intervjuerna är kvalitativa djupintervjuer som är semi–strukturerade till sin natur. Utifrån detta material har jag sedan typologiserat fenomenet utifrån min teoretiska modell och därifrån besvarat de forskningsfrågor som mitt syfte krävt. Meditationen inom de olika församlingarna jag har besökt i denna studie är mycket likartad och det råder konformitet mellan församlingarna när det gäller hur de utför och lär ut meditation. Det som skiljer mest mellan församlingarna är frågan om varför man anordnar meditation, om det är för att deltagarna ska anamma den kristna tron eller om var och en är fri att delta med den tro eller icke–tro hen har. I denna fråga kan mina informanter delas upp i två grupper, de som anser att meditationen måste ha en uttalat kristen inriktning för att användas inom Svenska kyrkan, och de som anser att meditation inte kan delas in i konfessionell eller icke–konfessionell och att det är upp till var och en att bestämma inriktning på meditationen.

Atlantic Scotland provides plentiful and often dramatic evidence for settlement during the Iron Age but, like much of Europe, very little is known of the funerary traditions of communities in this region. Formal burial appears to have been rare, and evidence for alternative mortuary treatments is dispersed, varied and, to date, poorly understood. This study sets out to examine for the first time all human remains dating to the Iron Age in Atlantic Scotland, found in a variety of contexts ranging from formal cemeteries to occupied domestic sites. This data-set, despite its limitations, forms the basis for a new understanding of funerary treatment and daily life in later prehistoric Atlantic Scotland, signifying the development of an extraordinary range of different methods of dealing with, and harnessing the power of, the dead during this period. This information in turn can contribute to wider issues surrounding attitudes to the dead, religious belief, domestic life and the nature of society in Iron Age Europe.

The growing halal food sector in America has garnered attention recently in a number of ways regarding changing consumer demands, production yield, and certification standards. Muslim consumers choosing halal food products today combine more objective knowledge about halal food products - learned from jurists, imams, the Qur’an, ḥadīth, and family traditions - with more subjective knowledge about what they want from their food. The resultant mix of objective and subjective information about halal food production standards creates a unique milieu termed, in this thesis, the contemporary consumption context. The small variances between what different Muslim consumers want out of their halal food – particularly in terms of ethical and humane animal treatment – introduce tiny iterations to the timeless religious ritual that halal food consumption and ẓabīḥa, or ritual, slaughter entail. / text

This thesis explores the social construction of birth by analyzing the interaction between the participants present in the delivery room. The data is drawn from 79 video recordings of birth. Six are unedited research recordings and the remaining 73 were edited for pedagogical, documentary and entertaining purposes. The theoretical and analytical perspective is Conversation Analysis. With this microanalytic method, a detailed insight is given to the interaction in the delivery room which should be of linguistic, anthropologic and midwifery interest. The thesis demonstrates how different situations are shaped during labor and the first 15 minutes after birth. It reveals how the identities child, girl, boy, mother, father, woman and man are constructed and negotiated in the unfolding interaction between the participants. In this sense, the thesis uncovers the construction of family roles in the delivery room during a delicate interaction between the private persons and the institutional representatives. The latter are charged with the complex task of safeguarding the physical wellbeing of mother and child while also promoting the development of parental identities. The thesis highlights the existence of a social birth work; the institutional interactants make use of a range of linguistic resources to demarcate the progression from second stage labor to birth and to position the newborn as an endeared social creature. Birth is an important liminal situation and is therefore forcefully spoken forth, and, as the thesis shows, enhanced with more or less ritual utterances and actions. Birth is also a matter of bodies, the body in labor, the supporting body of the partner and the appearance of the body of the newborn. The thesis gives insight into how these bodies are managed and stylized in interaction. Further the thesis makes visible the midwife’s use of interactional resources to instill strength into the body of the woman in labor. The results are discussed in light of the socio-cultural circumstances for hospital birth in Sweden.

This thesis investigates the multiple and contested spaces of belonging that may be evoked by ritualised musical performance. It makes an ethnographic case study of the Zorn Badge Auditions in Sweden, in which musicians play before a jury in the hope of being awarded a Zorn Badge and a prestigious but also contested title: Riksspelman. Building on theories of ritual and performance in combination with Sara Ahmed’s theorisation of orientation, the thesis attends to sensory ways of experiencing and knowing music while tracing the various ways in which Swedish traditional music is performed, felt, heard, sensed and understood in audition spaces. It draws on interviews with players and jury members, participant observations of music auditions and the jury’s deliberations, showing how musical value is negotiated through processes of inclusion and exclusion of repertoires, instruments and performance practices. The study also illuminates how anxiety and uncertainties are felt on both sides of the adjudication table. The auditions trigger feelings of belonging and harmony, but also rupture and distance. A brimming of felt qualities contributes to the sensing of history, tradition, memory, place and geography, as well as close emotional connections between music and individual performers. The thesis reveals how gradual adaptation, and the lived experiences of time within tradition, allow the Zorn institution to negotiate change and thereby maintain its position within Swedish society.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Jugendfeier or Jugendweihe, the youth ‘rite of passage’ ritual has been ideologically re-and-de-contextualised by various movements throughout the last 150 years of German history. It is most commonly associated with the communist German Democratic Republic where it was used as a state initiation ritual for the foundation of ‘socialist personalities.’ This thesis focuses on Jugendfeier the ‘youth celebration’ ceremony as performed by the German Humanist Association (Humanistischer Verband Deutschlands) in Berlin. Jugendweihe originated in the mid-nineteenth century as an alternative to Catholic First Communion and Protestant Confirmation. In the former East Germany between 1956 and 1989 more than seven million students aged thirteen to fourteen undertook the ritual. Significantly, it is claimed that in present-day Germany more than 100,000 students annually take part in the ritual throughout post-socialist Germany in one form or another. This thesis highlights the often contradictory nature of Jugendweihe by examining its historical development and continuation in post-socialist Germany. It contrasts the official views of Jugendweihe in the eyes of its organisers and supporters, as well as the unofficial opinions of its participants in the GDR and in contemporary Berlin. It is often assumed that with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the East German regime along with its culture, politics, economy, rituals and everyday way of life would likewise fade away. This thesis reconstructs the history of Jugendweihe from its Christian origins, details its implementation as a state-ritual in the GDR, and engages with the German Humanist Association’s adaption of Jugendfeier in reunified Berlin. A study of such a contested ritual sheds light on larger discussions concerning identity, community, theories on ritual, and perceptions of secularisation and humanism. By studying the practices of a largely ‘atheist’ group that rejects religion, it challenges what constitutes collective and individual notions of religiosity and secularity.

Joseph Campbell tells us that if you look closely at all cultures you find the story of “The Hero's Journey”, the vehicle for my thesis project, a devised theatre piece titled A Thousand Faces: Everyday Heroes. Though the subject of A Thousand Faces is the exploration of “The Hero's Journey” the foundation of the work is the application of the pedagogical principles of Ritual Poetic Drama Within the African Continuum (RPDWAC) as outlined in the practices of my mentor Dr. Tawnya Pettiford-Wates, Assistant Professor of Performance at Virginia Commonwealth University Theatre (VCU). I apply RPDWAC pedagogical principles to Archetypes for the Actor/Singer (AFAS), a training methodology developed by Frankie Armstrong and another of my mentors, Professor of Voice and Speech and Head of Performance at VCU Theatre, Janet B. Rodgers. This paper outlines the process and performance of a class that combined these methodologies.

This thesis is a personal journey examining the applications of Ritual Poetic Drama Within the African Continuum as developed by my mentor Dr. Tawnya Pettiford-Wates, to the profession of the dramatic artist whether they are actor, director, educator or producer, to the training of the dramatic artist as a means of empowering generative, self defined, self validating artists, and as a means of developing community specific dramas in the hopes of facilitating individual and personal revelation. Using the author’s personal experiences as evidence, it intends to affirm Ritual Poetic Drama Within the African Continuum as an emergent methodology for theatrical practitioners.

The notion of “you are what you buy” is an updated adage from “you are what you eat”. It makes a connection between our everyday objects and their effect on our lived experience. Looking at our relationships with our things as a type of contract, we must be intentional to shape these object contracts for our own good and health. Instead of our society’s design talents being put toward a consumerist agenda, designers must direct research and development which addresses the effects of our products holistically. Various concepts have emerged in my creative practice which demand a deeper research and development. These are concepts of little interest to the corporate product developer, as they appeal to agendas beyond profit. Just as the slow food movement responds to fast food and “Big Ag”, the concepts of time, gifts, ritual emerge as virtues which demand development in our products. These concepts are not an answer to consumerism. However, they are tastes that have fallen off of our product diet. I point to various works works of art and design, of my own and others, which seek to renew the vastness of our potential experience with everyday objects. Instead of choosing from the corporate offering, we may take a more critical view of design which looks at our holistic experience with our products.