Negotiating Rites: (Oxford Ritual Studies Series)

In common understanding, but also in scholarly discourse, ritual has been long viewed as an undisputed and indisputable part of (especially religious) tradition, performed over and over in the same ways: stable in form, meaningless, preconcieved, and with the aim of creating harmony and enabling a tradition's survival. The authors represented in this collection argue, however, that these assumptions can be seriously challenged. Not only are rituals frequently disputed, they also constitute a field in which vital and sometimes even violent negotiations take place. Negotiations - here understood as processes of interaction during which differing positions are debated and/or acted out - are ubiquitous in ritual contexts, either in relation to the ritual itself, or in relation to the realm beyond any given ritual performance. The authors contend that a central feature of ritual is its embeddedness in negotiation processes and that life beyond the ritual frame often is negotiated in the field of rituals. This point of view opens up fruitful new perspectives on ritual procedures, on the interactions that constitute these procedures, and on the contexts in which they are embedded. By explicitly addressing and theorizing the relevance of negotiation in the world of ritual, the essays in this volume seek to persuade scholars and students alike to think differently and to find new starting points for more nuanced discussions.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Ute Hüsken and Frank Neubert PART ONE - SHARING A WORLD 1. Negotiating Karma: Penance in Classical Indian Law Books Mikael Aktor 2. Negotiations at Death: Assessing Gifts, Mothers and Marriages Erik de Maaker 3. "The Clitoris Is Indeed Your Sweet": Negotiating Gender Roles in the Ritual Setting of the Swahili New Year's Festival Magnus Echtler 4. Ritual Negotiations in Lutherland Barry Stephenson 5. Negotiating Rites in Imperial China: The Case of Northern Song Court Ritual Debates from 1034 to 1093 Christian Meyer PART TWO - GETTING IT STRAIGHT 6. Performing the Ancient Ones: The Body-in-practice as the Ground of Ritual Negotiation Nikki Bado 7. Negotiating Tantra and Veda in the Parasurama-Kalpa Tradition Annette Wilke 8. Same-Sex Weddings in Canada: Rituals of Resistance or Rituals of Conformity? Shari Lash 9. The Social Element of Visionary Revelation: Public Rites as a Means of Negotiating Authenticity in Tibetan Buddhist Visionary Lineages Amy Holmes-Tagchungdarpa 10. Negotiating Ritual Repair: The prayascitta Material in the Baudhayana Srauta Sutra Kathryn McClymond PART THREE - MEANINGS AND VALUES OF RITUAL 11. Hook-Swinging in South India: Negotiating the Subaltern Space within a Colonial Society Ulrike Schröder 12. Negotiating Meaning and Enactment in a Buddhist Ritual Patricia Q. Campbell 13. Ordination into the Buddhist Sangha as an Initiation Ritual and as a Legal Procedure Ute Hüsken and Petra Kieffer-Pülz 14. Negotiating the Social in the Ritual Theory of Victor Turner and Roy Rappaport Grant Potts

About the Author :
UH: Professor of Sanskrit, University of Oslo and co-editor of the Oxford Ritual Studies series; FN: Assistant Professor of Religion, Universität Bern

Review :
"So far no works have exclusively analyzed the interrelationship between ritual and notions of negotiation although negotiation and rituals are inextricably interlinked, as this array of superbly researched and lucidly written articles shows. The book does nothing less than demonstrate that rituals are indispensable in situations of crisis and conflict. It is based on the mature debate on the performativity of ritual, and reflections on culture as process and negotiation. This scholarly yet readable book will undoubtedly become a welcome resource and reference book for students, teachers, and scholars alike."-- Axel Michaels, author of Siva in Trouble