Publisher's Synopsis
"This book is a presentation of case studies of absent rituals, intended to explore absent ritual as a ritual category of its own by distinguishing forms or types of its manifestation, use, and appropriation. Apart from this groundbreaking exploration of a ritual category, this theme of absent ritual fits into a broader trend in ritual studies. In addition to a strong focus on ritual repertoires with a sort of 'canonical' status (rites of passage, death rites, pilgrimage, etc.), attention has recently been paid to more problem-oriented and analytical categories of ritual. These categories focus more explicitly on ritual as a process of action and reaction, on different contexts and thus on the ritual dynamics. The contributors to Absent Ritual engage this tradition of ritual categories and approaches with a very topical ritual category in hand, a type of ritual that enters a very prominent field of ritual dynamics. The first part of the
