Extreme Rituals as Social Technologies

Extreme rituals enhance social cohesion

Reconstructing Technologies as Social Practice

This article provides an overview of a research program developed over the past 20 years to explore relations between everyday practices and technology design and use. The studies highlighted reflect three interrelated lines of inquiry: (a) critical analyses of technical discourses and practices, (b) ethnographies of work and technologies-in-use, and (c) design interventions. Starting from the ...

Social rituals and onset of mental disorders

The concept of a prodrome, or the very earliest signs of the onset of a mental disorder, is well known in clinical psychiatry, and refers to disturbances of ordinary behaviour that may precede the behaviour and experiences that constitute recognised psychiatric symptoms and signs. In the literature, however, prodromes are described simply by means of lists of behaviours, such as avoidance of me...

Rituals as language: the archaeological evidence

Gestures, theatrical performances, face-to-face interactions, dances and any other symbolic activity that does not use material objects is often irremediably lost in the archaeological perspective. Anthropological studies can provide countless examples, but most importantly, the archaeological research confirms the importance of symbolism and rituality. For example, theatre for Greeks and Roman...

Rituals or Good Works: Social Signalling in Religious Organizations

We develop a model of social signalling of religiosity and cooperative behaviour in religious organizations. The model embeds a ritual-based religious organization in which signalling arises through the use of costly rituals, and a discipline-based religious organization in which such signalling occurs through the monitoring of past behaviour. We use this framework to contrast -positively and n...