Hi Karin-- No accident that in our seminar we are reading several chapters
from Middleton and Smith! Thanks so much for sending this along. It can
serve, among other things, to help advertise the existence of the very
interesting Middleton and Smith book to XMCA.
mike
On 3/9/06, mktostes <mktostes@uol.com.br> wrote:
>
>
>
> Dear Mike,
>
>
>
> As I was reading an article by David Middleton I found a reference to Paul
> Connerton which may be useful, even though they are talking about memory:
>
>
>
> Casey is, in effect, arguing that much of what we take to be personal and
> private is, in fact, embedded in our actual concrete engagement with other
> people and things. In so doing, the inner character of our experiences
> becomes necessarily extended outwards and reflected back at us – in other
> words, *objectified*. What is more, this objectification is part of the
> full richness of being – our memories become deepened and expanded as a
> result. However, is it not also possible that certain modes of participation
> may act to restrict or constrain remembering? Paul Connerton's (1989) book
> *How Societies Remember* explores this possibility. Connerton is primary
> concerned with 'ritual' forms of commemoration. He (1989: 59) argues that,
> as rituals typically involve a highly stylised, repetitive set of movements
> and actions on the part of performers, this results in a restriction of
> meanings that arise in the performance, leaving little space for individual
> interpretation:
>
>
>
> One kneels or one does not kneel, one executes the movement necessary to
> perform the Nazi salute or one does not. To kneel in subordination is not to
> state subordination, nor is it just to communicate a message of submission.
> To kneel in subordination is to display it through the visible, present
> substance of one's body.
>
>
>
> Rituals are, in essence, performative. What they seek to accomplish –
> submission, assent to authority, religious piety – is achieved in the very
> doing of the act. The space for arguing otherwise or witholding consent is
> effaced as soon as one begins to participate. Connerton notes that this
> performative character means that rituals have a compelling effect on
> participants. To take part in a commemorative ritual is to be recruited into
> the significance of the event being collectively recalled (particularly when
> the ritual involves some form of re-enactment, such as when an annual march
> traces a particular geographical route or flowers are lain at a monument).
>
>
>
> Connerton, P. (1989). *How societies remember*. Cambridge: Cambridge
> University Press.
>
> P.S. I'm replying in private because Middleton's article I'm reading
> (translating) hasn't been published yet…
>
> References to Middleton:
>
> Adapted from David Middleton and Steven D. Brown *The social psychology of
> experience: Studies in remembering and forgetting*. Sage Publications
> 2005. A version of this paper will also appear in Contemporary
> Social-Cultural Research:
>
> Uniting Culture, Society, and Psychology* *edited by Jaan Valsiner and
> Alberto Rosa, CUP in press.
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Karin Quast
>
>
>
> -----Mensagem original-----
> De: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] Em
> nome de Mike Cole
> Enviada em: segunda-feira, 27 de fevereiro de 2006 13:06
> Para: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Assunto: Re: [xmca] Rituals as mediators-- Help Please
>
>
>
> On 2/27/06, Shirley Franklin <s.franklin@dsl.pipex.com> wrote:
>
> >
>
> > And here is a useful link to some of Ben Rampton' s plus colleagues'
>
> > papers.
>
> >
>
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