The Politics of Ritual

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"Professional athletes taking a knee during the national anthem. Student activists holding candlelight vigils to commemorate victims of sexual violence. Jewish activists reciting the Mourner's Kaddish on the streets of New York City in the wake of another police shooting. Why are members of these groups performing these particular actions to express their political views? Noting that these are examples of ritual performance, Molly Farneth argues that rituals, in general, are acts that mark boundaries, shape habits and dispositions, express commitments and attitudes, inculcate norms, and create, sustain, or transform the communities to which the ritual performers belong. Because rituals have the potential to either sustain or challenge power relations within communities, they are-she argues-deeply political. Drawing on these and other examples, this book is an investigation into the inescapable political significance and power of ritual. While readily acknowledging that rituals can enable authoritarian regimes and facilitate relationships of domination, Farneth here pays particular attention to the rituals of democratic life-those that create, sustain, and transform properly democratic communities, contest unjust power relations and political structures, and encourage and cultivate habits of participation"--Información proporcionada por el editor comercial.