Symbols, Song, Dance and Features of Articulation Is religion an extreme form of traditional authority?

Abstract

Recent studies of symbols in ritual share two features. First, they isolate symbols from the ritualprocess; second, they interpret symbols as units containing meaning. In this paper I want to argue thatsymbols in ritual cannot be understood without a prior study of the nature of the communication medium of ritual in which they are embedded, in particular singing and dancing, and that once this has been done we find that symbols cannot any more be understood as units of meaning simply on the Saussurian signifier/signified model, however subtly this model is handled. Such varied writers as Bettelheim (1954) and Turner (1959) are to my mind examples of writers ultimately using this model for the study of meaning in ritual.

Only (Dis-)Connect: Pentecostal Global Networking as Revelation and Concealment

“…Arguably, both organizations combine consciousness of a certain kind of peripherality in relation to other parts of the globe-the Word of Life as located far up in the secular North, and the RCCG as emerging from the economically and politically chaotic South-with ambitions to gain world-wide profiles as missionary forces. Yet, in line with my focus on the selectivities and discontinuities implied 2 Of course, ritual performance, even when it includes a sermon, can under some circumstances contain a relatively impoverished amount of propositional meaning [18], thus providing one means to avoid overt verbal disagreements and conflicts. 3 I shall use 'Word of Life' rather than the Swedish term in this essay; both are in common use.…”

Anthropology of music: Paradigms and perspectives

“…1 U prilog tvrdnji da muzika nije isključivo deo popularne kulture, niti da je treba isključivo izjednačavati s umetnošću pisano je u mnogim antropološkim radovima, videti na primer: Banić-Grubišić, 2010;Bloch, 1974;Boas, 1927;Davis, 2005;Gerstin, 1998;Merriam 1964. 2 Kada govorim o malim grupama, pre svega mislim na definisanje tog pojma prema Fajnu (Fine) i Haringtonovoj (Harrington).…”

“…Ono što je još važno napomenuti, ovom prilikom, jeste to da antropolozi ne proučavaju muziku u smislu njenih estetskih vrednosti. Oni sagledavaju njenu ulogu u širem društvenom sistemu i teže da kroz analizu uloge muzike u društvu razumeju društveni i kulturni sistem kojem pripada, te je muzička struktura ovde manje bitna.1 U prilog tvrdnji da muzika nije isključivo deo popularne kulture, niti da je treba isključivo izjednačavati s umetnošću pisano je u mnogim antropološkim radovima, videti na primer: Banić-Grubišić, 2010;Bloch, 1974;Boas, 1927;Davis, 2005;Gerstin, 1998;Merriam 1964. 2 Kada govorim o malim grupama, pre svega mislim na definisanje tog pojma prema Fajnu (Fine) i Haringtonovoj (Harrington).…”

Fieldwork and Footnotes

“…Within their heterogeneous discourse, the main structuralist, functionalist and neo-Marxist approaches seem to have upheld, until the mid-1970s, one common assumption, which could be formulated with regard to time conceptions like this: however differing and varying the ethnographic, cultural forms of time conceptions may be, the basic human perception of time (and of space) is the same; what differ are the social and cultural forms by which duration and succession, direction and extension are measured, experienced or evaluated (e.g. Bloch 1977).…”