ABSTRACT
The relationship between reenactment and ritual is often associated with the restagings and reappropriations of narratives from a mythological past and is common in many religious ceremonies. For example, the Eucharist, celebrated as part of the Christian liturgy, is generally thought of as a symbolic reenactment of the Last Supper (practices of reenactment). In the past, rituals were often defined as stereotyped, formalized, repetitive actions that served the primary purpose of communicating with spiritual or otherworldly entities. This limited perspective was called into question in the late 19th century, when new disciplines like anthropology, sociology, and psychology broadened the meaning of the concept of ritual from the sphere of religion to symbolic actions in general. The new approach defined rituals by their function, whether it be to establish social solidarity, to cope with individual or collective crises, to bring success on the hunt, or to structure the life cycle or the seasonal cycle. Rituals were seen as marking temporal breaks between interlinked actions, synchronizing the achievements of a community, and reinforcing beliefs in magical powers. Today, the field of ritual studies also includes approaches from media and communication studies, performance studies, and theater, literary, and art theory. It deals with a broad variety of different performances, ranging from everyday action (Goffman, 1959), play (Bateson, 1972), and theater (Schechner, 1985) to social drama (Turner, 1982) and possession rites (Kramer, 1987). The term ritual thus continues to defy a single definition. Instead, the field of ritual studies focuses on investigations of specific ritual practices in their local contexts and rites in different areas of social life (e.g., Geertz, 1973; Tambiah 1979; Douglas, 1966). Most scholars now treat rituals as highly creative and productive social interactions that reinforce the significance of meaning-laden objects and practices within specific social, political, and religious contexts.
