Tradisi Buru Babi Masyarakat Minangkabau: Proses, Makna, dan Drama Sosial

Pig hunting in Minangkabau is a rite of passage which is carried out in a gradual ritual process. The rite of pig hunting is a sign that involves various social aspects of the community, including economy, religion, and culture. There are two questions to be answered in this research. Firstly, what is the meaning of the rite in the society and, secondly, how does the community's traditional pig hunting construct a social drama. To answer those questions, the author uses Victor Turner's ritual theory and Max Weber's theory of social drama. The results of this study indicate two main things. First, the pig hunting, which was originally an attempt to eliminate pests, later developed into a social drama. The rite of hunting as a social drama has four functions, namely (1) eliminating conflict; (2) limiting divisions and building community solidarity; (3) unites two opposing principles; and (4) provides new strength and motivation to live in everyday society. Second, as a social drama, the tradition forms a social construction. In this social process, there are four phases of social drama, (1) violation of social norms which invites the community to unite in eradicating pests; (2) wild pests pose a real threat, which can make the life of the farming community miserable (crisis) so that the community unites and holds various ceremonies to prepare for the implementation of hunting; (3) crisis recovery measures by carrying out a pig hunting ceremony; and (4) returns society with its entire social order to a normal situation.AbstrakBuru babi dalam masyarakat Minangkabau merupakan sebuah ritus yang dilaksanakan dalam sebuah proses ritual yang bertahap. Ritus buru babi menjadi sebuah penanda yang melibatkan berbagai aspek sosial masyarakat Minangkabau, termasuk ekonomi, religi, dan budaya. Ada dua pertanyaan yang hendak dijawab di dalam penelitian ini. Pertama, apa makna ritus buru babi dalam masyarakat Minangkabau dan bagaimana konstruksi sosial dari proses ritual tradisi buru babi sebagai sebuah drama sosial? Untuk menjawab kedua pertanyaan tersebut, penulis menggunakan teori ritual Victor Turner dan teori drama sosial Max Weber. Hasi penelitian ini menunjukkan dua hal pokok. Pertama, peristiwa buru babi yang awalnya hanya merupakan upaya para petani menghilangkan hama tanaman berkembang menjadi sebuah drama sosial. Ritus buru babi sebagai drama sosial ternyata memiliki empat fungsi, yaitu (1) menghilangkan konflik; (2) membatasi perpecahan dan membangun solidaritas masyarakat; (3) mempersatukan dua prinsip yang bertentangan; dan (4) memberikan kekuatan dan motivasi baru untuk hidup dalam masyarakat sehari-hari. Kedua, sebagai drama sosial, tradisi buru babi membentuk sebuah konstruksi sosial. Di dalam proses sosial itu terdapat empat fase drama sosial yang terdiri atas (1) pelanggaran norma sosial oleh hama yang mengundang masyarakat untuk bersatu melakukan pembasmian; (2) hama babi mendatangkan ancaman yang nyata yang dapat menyengsarakan kehidupan masyarakat petani (krisis) sehingga masyarakat bersatu dan mengadakan berbagai upacara persiapan pelaksanaan berburu; (3) tindakan pemulihan krisis dengan melaksanakan upacara berburu babi; dan (4) mengembalikan masyarakat dengan seluruh tatanan sosialnya ke situasi normal.

Theories of Greek and Roman Sport

This chapter discusses the use of theory in the study of Greek and Roman sport. It begins with a brief review of the reasons for the relative paucity of theory in the relevant scholarship, then goes on to examine five different kinds of theory that have been productively applied to the study of sport: functionalism, conflict theory, the ‘discipline’ theory of Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu’s work on corporeal discipline and on the relationship between sport and social inequality, and ritual theory. This is by no means a comprehensive survey of theories that have been used in the study of sport—a task that could occupy a volume of its own. The five theories discussed here were chosen because they have strong potential usefulness in the study of Greek and Roman sport.

Protesting Populist Knowledge Practices: Collective Effervescence at the March for Science London

On 22 April 2017, 10,000 people joined the March for Science London, one of 600 events globally asserting the importance of science against post-truth. Here we report an online and on-the-ground observational study of the London event in its distinct, post-Brexit referendum context. We analyse the motives for marchers’ attendance, and their collective enactment of what science is and why and by what it is threatened. Drawing upon Interaction Ritual Theory and the concept of civic epistemology, we develop the notion of populist knowledge practices to capture the ‘other’ that marchers defined themselves against. We detail how this was performed, and how it articulated a particular vision for science–society relations in Britain. In closing, we argue that the March for Science is one in a chain of anti-populist activist events that retains collective effervescence while transcending specific framings.

Beyond Statistical Ritual: Theory in Psychological Science

More than 40 years ago, Paul Meehl (1978) published a seminal critique of the state of theorizing in psychological science. According to Meehl, the quality of theories had diminished in the preceding decades, resulting in statistical methods standing in for theoretical rigor. In this introduction to the special issue Theory in Psychological Science, we apply Meehl’s account to contemporary psychological science. We suggest that by the time of Meehl’s writing, psychology found itself in the midst of a crisis that is typical of maturing sciences, in which the theories that had been guiding research were gradually cast into doubt. Psychologists were faced with the same general choice when worldviews fail: Face reality and pursue knowledge in the absence of certainty, or shift emphasis toward sources of synthetic certainty. We suggest that psychologists have too often chosen the latter option, substituting synthetic certainties for theory-guided research, in much the same manner as Scholastic scholars did centuries ago. Drawing from our contributors, we go on to make recommendations for how psychological science may fully reengage with theory-based science.

Introduction

The introduction to Practicing Atheism familiarizes the reader with contemporary atheist culture through a brief description of a billboard campaign sponsored by the Freedom from Religion Foundation. This chapter situates the larger work within a growing body of scholarship on secularism and atheism, suggesting that the cultural studies approach of this book makes a novel contribution to the field of secular studies. The introduction explains the book’s approach to media, both theoretically and methodologically, suggesting that there is no separating culture from media. Finally, the introduction lays out the theoretical argument of the book, which accounts for the central tension of contemporary atheist culture: the fact that organized atheism comes to bear a resemblance to what we (and atheists themselves) think of as religion. Ritual theory is introduced as a tool for explaining this tension.

EXPRESS: Social Atmospheres: How Interaction Ritual Chains Create Effervescent Experiences of Place

Atmospheres are experiences of place involving transformations of consumers’ behaviors and emotions. Existing marketing research reveals how atmospheric stimuli, service performances, and ritual place-making enhance place experiences and create value for firms. Yet it remains unclear how shared experiences of atmosphere emerge and intensify among groups of people during collective live events. Accordingly, this paper uses sociological interaction ritual theory to conceptualize ‘social atmospheres’: rapidly changing qualities of place created when a shared focus aligns consumers’ emotions and behavior, resulting in lively expressions of collective effervescence. With data from an ethnography of an English Premier League football stadium, the authors identify a four-stage process of creating atmospheres in interaction ritual chains. This framework goes beyond conventional retail and servicescape design by demonstrating that social atmospheres are mobile and co-created between firms and consumers before, during and after a main event. The study also reveals how interaction rituals can be disrupted, and offers insight as to how firms can balance key tensions in creating social atmospheres as a means to enhance customer experiences, customer loyalty, and communal place attachments.

“A Balm In Gilead”

The chapter grapples with the oft-cited interrelation of characteristically Black preaching and gospel music, using what has been called “the musicality of Black preaching” to understand the centrality of vamps to gospel singing. This cumulative turn toward musicality is more than just a homiletical strategy: rather, it functions as the formal logic, the organizing principle, for the network of belief, performance, and reception that we have come to know as the Gospel Imagination. Tuning up catalyzes movement between “material” and “spiritual” worlds, manifesting gospel’s belief that sound is a vehicle for interworldly exchange. The chapter begins with the live recorded performance of Richard Smallwood’s song “Healing” (1998), which shows how this piece stages its own transcendence, musically performing, within the context of song, what is performed in sermons by the shift from speech to song. After using discourses drawn from homiletics, ritual theory, and phenomenology to shape an understanding of tuning up, the chapter offers a fuller sense of this constitutive practice by attending to vignettes from four sermons, and four songs: Walter Hawkins’s “Marvelous,” Judith McAllister’s “High Praise,” Myrna Summers’s “Oh, How Precious,” and Glenn Burleigh’s “Order My Steps.”

Imperial Temple in the New Learning

Chapter 5 deals with the general intellectual background where the ritual debates of the 1070s were rooted. It focuses on how Wang Anshi and his admirers in the name of New Learning scholars interpreted the Imperial Temple in their ritual commentaries. Among these scholars, the chapter devotes special attention to Wang Zhaoyu’s 王昭禹‎ and Chen Xiangdao’s 陳祥道‎ understandings of the Imperial Temple and categorizes them into two major conceptions of ritual relations between ancestors. The chapter also illustrates how Wang Anshi’s admirers as ritualists elaborated and revised Wang’s ritual theory, thereby contributing to the revival of ancient rituals under Emperor Huizong’s reign.

Reproduction of Volcanic Rituals in Appealing for the Right to Live in Disaster-Prone Zones on Mount Merapi

In response to the Mount Merapi eruption in 2010, the government had conducted several disaster risk reduction programs. However, the programs had ironically threatened hamlets as communities regarding their rights to practice their local knowledge and live in their home ground. This study employed a qualitative method involving five hamlets from December 2019 until February 2020. The data were collected by employing participatory observation and depth interviews, involving the ritual organizers, participants, citizens, guests, and other audience. Spirited by ritual theory as political action, this research showed that the hamlets formulated volcanic ritual reproductions into three forms which were the delegitimation of the disaster risk reduction programs, the reinforcement of Kejawen identity, and the showing off the safety and prosperity. Those reproductions were recognized by the emergence of new ritual processions in the forms of parades, pilgrimages, offerings, and enhancements of ritual formalization and celebrations. Those reproductions positively impacted the literacy and recognition from both the government and general society that those hamlets have been living a safe and prosperous life in Merapi, even though they are located in disaster-prone areas.