[wibbelsman.1]

06-05-2017
Ritual Encounters Chapter 6 and Conclusion

This chapter underscores ritual performances as deeply contested social terrain—arenas of ongoing cultural and political contention, moral posturing, and economic contingency—with relevance to our broader discussion of the public square. The chapter contrasts indigenous and mestizo interpretations of the Stations of the Cross, highlighting practice and lived experience in the former and representation in the latter.

As the lived experience of the ritual unfolds in indigenous context, we see how through practice and shared suffering the community is expanded to include past figures like Christ and contemporary peoples of different ethnicities and socio-economic classes in a condition that anthropologist Victor Turner describes as “no longer being next to each other but with one another.”

In your own understanding, how does symbolic analysis differ from semiotic analysis? What type of cultural understandings do each of them facilitate?

How does the notion of ritual and “performance” as lived experiences differ from readings of these activities as “representations”? In what ways are the outcomes different?

What role does suffering play in the development of a moral-political discourse? What role does it play in ideas of the common good?

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