It is about time: Birthdays as modern rites of temporality

Shoham, Hizky

doi:10.1177/0961463x20955094

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…For many the restructuring of daily life could evoke a sort of Groundhog Day impression where the same day repeats again and again, with little novelty or excitement and without concerts, barbeques and birthday parties ( Wittmann, 2020 ). Research conducted outside of the COVID-19 context suggested that events like birthday parties, weddings and college graduations are temporal rituals that meaningfully contribute to shaping the identity of individuals ( Shoham, 2021 ), but now such events have been cancelled because of restrictions on social gatherings. Without events to punctuate one’s experience and times passage, specific days of the week can lose meaning: Sunday and Monday blend together, and we have no idea what day in the week it is ( Wittmann, 2020 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disrupting times in the wake of the pandemic: Dispositional time attitudes, time perception and temporal focus

Loose

2021

Time & Society

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Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic has majorly disrupted many aspects of people’s lives, provoking psychosocial distress among students. People’s positive and negative attitudes towards the past, present and future were a dispositional pre–COVID-19 reality. Faced with a pandemic, people have reported disruptions in the speed of passing time. People can shift their attention more towards the past, present or future when major changes in society occur. These aspects of psychological time would be key to understanding the quality of psychosocial adjustment to the pandemic. We hypothesized that dispositional time attitudes impact psychosocial distress because they would trigger situational changes in our time perception and temporal focus. Methods One hundred and forty-four university students in Uruguay responded to self-report questionnaires online while in-person classes were cancelled. Students reported on shifts in temporal focus, changes in time awareness and dispositional time attitudes. Reactive psychological, social and learning environment distress were reported. Results Students reported substantial changes in time perception and temporal focus. A correlation matrix showed significant relationships between time attitudes, focus and awareness. For example, psychological distress was correlated with negative time attitudes, slower passage of time, boredom, blurred sense of time and shifting focus to the past. Mediation models were derived. The indirect effect of time attitudes on psychological distress was significant through past focus. Discussion Dispositional time attitudes would impact students’ capacity to cope with the pandemic. Situational shifts in temporal focus and perception were prevalent and can be viewed as temporal coping mechanisms in the wake of powerful societal change. Our mediation models showed that those with negative time attitudes experienced more psychological distress because they shifted their attention to the past. Future directions for research and practical implications are discussed.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disrupting times in the wake of the pandemic: Dispositional time attitudes, time perception and temporal focus

Loose

2021

Time & Society

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“…To the extent that there are supra-national civil spheres (Wang, 2019), national-diasporic civil spheres (Goldberg, 2015), or a global civil sphere (Alexander, 2015: Thesis vi), we can detect in them a folkloric civil sphere that helps to make people care about the regular civil sphere. Future research might examine the extent to which the conventional ritual of the handshake grounds a global civil sphere of diplomatic rituals; or the extent to which the globalized birthday ritual grounds a global civil sphere of mutual recognition by their peers of individuals in their individuality (Shoham, 2021b). Another generally overlooked hypothesis is the extent to which we can speak about ‘tiny’ civil spheres that exist in ‘tiny publics’ (Fine, 2012): small communities, neighborhood blocks, and even nuclear families, which, I would argue, use binary codes of ‘civil/non-civil’ to manage their respective public spaces – such as the family dinner (Bugge and Almås, 2006; see Horgan, 2014).…”

Section: Against Methodological Nationalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The allegedly disenchanted world of modern industrial societies is replete with conventional rituals that are performed devoutly and understood as a sign of civility and a marker of group belonging, but are seldom reflected upon or understood as more than arbitrary conventions. Examples include clapping to express appreciation, shaking hands as a ritual of friendship, making a toast as a mark of festivity, and marking birthdays as a ritual of individualism (Shoham, 2021b). Examples that concern the folkloric civil sphere are holiday customs related to traditions of food, leisure, consumer culture, performance, and celebration (e.g.…”

Section: Finding Meanings In Conventionalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Our (Civil) Way of Life’: The Folkloric Civil Sphere

Shoham

2022

Cultural Sociology

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Does the civil sphere consist merely of conscious and reflective subjects? Do folkloric habits, customs, and traditions contribute anything to its universalism? This article proposes the term ‘folkloric civil sphere’ to describe a non-intentional dimension of social life and of the civil sphere, composed of conventional rituals – such as those of holidays – that are followed without reflection or debate and that together form a collective ‘way of life,’ but which are nevertheless civil, in that they transcend primordial loyalties and encourage universalistic discourse. As opposed to the neo-Durkheimian focus on the meanings of delineated and emotionally moving performances, the article relies on ethnological history to develop a bottom-up model for grasping the civil meanings of conventional rituals. It suggests recreating the gradual chronological process in which conventions appear, are disseminated, turn into rituals and into group icons, and only then may acquire ambiguous meanings. Hence the meanings of folkloric customs often lie in the perceived universalism of social conventions – what ‘everyone’ does – rather than in their symbolic significance or semiotic thickness. The article proposes a shift in focus in the discussions of civil solidarity: instead of institutional, legal, and discursive processes, it centers on the slow and quiet integration of minority groups – religious and ethnic groups or undocumented immigrants – into the symbolic civil sphere, by means of cultural codes that become embedded in everyday conventions and create, bottom up, a sense of belonging to the universalist civil sphere and its distinct ‘way of life.’

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“…87, 89). Instead of a public discussion, in the case of the birthday party the fourth stage highlights a gap between the small minority that criticizes its meaninglessness and the indifferent majority that often associates the birthday with the world of bureaucracy (Shamgar-Handelman and Handelman, 1991) or with the conventionalized temporality of modern industrial societies (Shoham, 2021a). If there is any discussion of meanings-a rarity-it focuses on whether the party means anything at all and assumes that the conventionality is part of the meaning.…”

Section: Contested Meaning(s)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Deep Conventionality, or, Tracing the Meanings of Conventional Rituals

Shoham

2023

American Behavioral Scientist

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Can conventional rituals be meaningful? When and how can conventionality be part of processes of meaning-making rather than a mere obstacle that the cultural analyst must overcome? The article traces the meanings of minor rituals that populate the world of modern industrial societies and seem to have universal appeal. The article applies a Blochian regressive method to ethnological history in order to re-create the gradual process in which conventions appear, are disseminated, popularized, turned into group icons, and ritualized, and only then—and only sometimes—acquire discursive meanings that are often contested. This sequential model reveals the power of conventionality—the lack of contemplation about social conventions—in the processes of popularizing, ritualizing, and iconizing conventional acts. In the terms of Alexander’s meaning-centered performance theory, this conventionality exemplifies a “perfect” or “effortless” fusion of performers and audience. The article thus argues that the meanings of conventional rituals—and perhaps also of conventional performances of more “sacred” rituals—often lie not in symbolic significance or semiotic thickness, but in deep conventionality: meaningfulness encoded in the convention itself.

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It is about time: Birthdays as modern rites of temporality

Cited by 8 publications

References 56 publications

Disrupting times in the wake of the pandemic: Dispositional time attitudes, time perception and temporal focus

Disrupting times in the wake of the pandemic: Dispositional time attitudes, time perception and temporal focus

‘Our (Civil) Way of Life’: The Folkloric Civil Sphere

Deep Conventionality, or, Tracing the Meanings of Conventional Rituals

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