Reassembling Democracy

Diverse processes of democratic participation– and exclusion – are closely bound by ritual acts and complexes. This collection is the result of collaborations and conversations between international researchers who have focused on the use of those cultural resources identifiable as “ritual” as they reassemble democracy. The main question integrating the collection concerns the ways in which the performative qualities of ritual resources achieve their potential as forms of personal and political empowerment in our changing and challenging world. The contributors seek to define the key terms“ritual” and “democracy” with reference to fieldwork-informed case studies from selected locations and communities. They critically address democracy as a concept, practice, model or vision in a time of climate crisis, nationalism, religious re-traditionalizing, fake news and aspirational fascism. Furthermore, they discuss ways in which ritual and ritualized practices such as memorial gatherings, festivals, protest actions, pilgrimages, worship services give rise to modes of feeling, processes of representation, and patterns of interaction in which democratic explorations, collective resistance and/or involvement with the larger than human world are given pride of place.