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Definition: Ritual (sociology) from The SAGE Glossary of the Social and Behavioral Sciences

An action or body of practices regularly performed. Rituals tend to be prescribed by tradition, religion, or culture. A ritual can be a method for performing an act or the act itself. Ritual is generally understood as a repetitive or recurrent practice and is often associated with ceremony.


Ritual

From The Brill Dictionary of Religion
1. ‘Ritual’ is a common word. In ordinary usage the term presents no problems. It is used for a category of individual or social behavior—such as religious or solemn ceremonies or, more generally, procedures regularly followed—that most people seem to recognize immediately. But the meaning of the term has been far from self-evident to its students. For over a century, ritual has been a ‘standard’ topic of study, especially within the social sciences and history of religion. Discussions have focused on the ‘basic characteristics’ of ritual behavior, on the question: What exactly is ritual? In 1968 Leach observed that “even among those who have specialized in this field there is the widest possible disagreement as to how the word ritual should be used and how the performance of ritual should be understood.” 1 A decade later the situation was unchanged, which prompted Grimes to advocate the development of ‘ritual studies’ as a distinct discipline. As he pointed out, students of ritual…
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Full text Article Ritual

From Critical Terms for Art History
The Batammaliba, Togo, West Africa. The...
My mother raised four children and a greater number of dogs. With each of us she struggled to teach and enforce ideas of architectural correctness— often involving prescribed (and proscribed) forms of ritual behavior. With the dogs it was relatively easy: sitting at specified times such as before…
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Full text Article Ritual

From World of Sociology, Gale
For this Hindu worshiper, the ritual of bathing...
The notion of ritual is prominent in sociological theory and research. While the study of rituals is more commonly associated with anthropological investigations or research into religious beliefs and practices, sociological accounts give ritual a much broader focus. For sociologists rituals are an…
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Full text Article ritual

From Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology
Often scripted, always iterable action whose effectiveness rests essentially on its being properly formed and performed, ritual belongs to the most incidental as well as to the most significant episodes of human life. The concept of ritual most broadly rendered includes the casting of spells as well…
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Full text Article Ritual

From Book of Bible Quotations
And Samuel said, Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord ? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips…
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Full text Article ritual

From Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology
According to most theories, ritual either involves different forms of action from everyday life, or at least different purposes. For example, in Christian ritual, the act of ingesting bread during holy communion is different from eating bread at any other time. The difference relates to the meaning…
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Full text Article Ritual

From The SAGE Encyclopedia of the Sociology of Religion
Although it has endured in reputation as one of the core concepts in the study of religion, there is no consensus on how to define or analyze the term ritual . Ritual studies span numerous academic disciplines, with much debate within and between them about what rituals are, how they work, and why…
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Full text Article Ritual

From Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World
© ANTONI HALIM/CORBIS NEWS/CORBIS
Indonesian Baby...
Ritual is a term that indicates more or less fixed acts and actions that take place at certain recurrent moments and in which certain bodily gestures, words, music, and material objects may play a role. In the past, the word ritual referred to religious ritual acts and to the rules regarding these…
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Full text Article ritual.

From The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Stage Actors and Acting
Ritual frames performance as a heightened creative, social, and spiritual state of mind. Students of world theatre have often traced the origins of dramatic narrative and acting to rituals that date from the earliest points of civilization. Ancient cultures employed rituals to help forge communal…
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Full text Article RITUAL

From The Edinburgh Dictionary of Modernism
A solemn religious practice or set of actions staged according to a prescribed order. Urgent debates about the precise function of ritual – how it defines, refines and lends ceremonial gravitas to the diurnal rhythms of human existence – powerfully shaped modernist cultural production. Decisive…
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Full text Article rituals

From Chambers Dictionary of the Unexplained
A ritual is a set of actions performed, mainly for their symbolic value, in a prescribed form. Rituals generally fulfil a religious or social purpose. The use of ritual is a feature of almost all societies, both past and present. Ritual may be used to serve many purposes, chiefly either religious or…
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