Ritual and Identity

To which extent is ritual involved in the formation of collective and personal identities? What are the mechanisms that are responsible for the (mostly pre-reflexive) constitution of identity in ritual; and - equally important - what are the strategies employed by social actors to actively influence and enhance these constitutive processes? In order to find answers to these essential questions, authors refer to case studies from their respective areas of field research such as Japan, Morocco, Taiwan, Korea, India, and the Azores. Köpping is professor of anthropology at the Institute of Ethnology at Heidelberg University and also guest-professor at Goldsmith College London. His research focusses on popular and folk-religious practices in Japan through the lens of performance theories. Leistle is a doctoral candidate at the Institute of Ethnology at Heidelberg University. In his research focussing on Moroocan trance rituals he concentrates on theories of the phenomenology of perception. Rudolph, Institute of Ethnology at Heidelberg University, conducts his post-doctoral research on rituals of Taiwanese aborigines under the impact of nativism and globalization. The editors are members of a cross-disciplinary research project "Ritual Dynamics" centred at Heidelberg University and funded by the German Research Foundation. Web-Adress: www.ritual-and-identity.uni-hd.de