“Ritual action always ends up looking like a “text”... the astute scholar can then use ritual as a window to the deeply embedded social systems, collective representations, and even the inner psychic like of foreign cultures.....
.....There is simply no a priori reason to believe that rituals stand in need of interpretation, and thus rituals should not be reduced to something - to anything - other than itself. To approach ritual as a text is tantamount to reducing music to its score, or territory to its map.” (Sharf 249-250)
Why would one wish to focus on the textual aspects of ritual and not the ritual itself. Maybe the ritual no longer exists and can only be found in the texts. Or maybe it is so esoteric that outsiders (if it is indeed outsiders who are investigating this ritual... which in the majority of circumstances it is...) are not allowed to witness the real thing.
I love reading, books are neat! But we cannot learn everything in books. Disciplines such as religious studies, cultural studies and anthropology have had quite a number of “armchair” scholars over history. In the field of Indology the ubiquitous name of Max Muller often finds itself as the butt of many jokes. The famous Indologist and lover of all things “Indian” had never been to India!!
During my undergrad I also felt like an impostor. I was studying a culture I had never experienced outside the weddings, funerals, and many festivals I had attended with my friends in the Indian diaspora community. I felt like I had no authority on any matters, even though I had studies them for many years. (let me just say now I still feel like I have no authority to talk about any such matters... but at least I no longer DREAD the question “oh so you have been to India?”). Yearning for India, a question always nagged in the back of my head “what if I hate it?” (My dad *knew* I would, but haha I proved him wrong!!). There is a second Indologist from the nineteenth century (I forgot his name, but he is less famous than Max Muller so I am making that my excuse!! ) who did make it to India, but quickly turned around and went back home. He hated it in reality, but still studied in from the comfort of his home in England.
I took a really cool class at UBC in Asian Theatre. We learned all about lots of different “performance” traditions. I was really interested in Kathakali. It’s not a “ritual” per se. But the line between what is or is not “religious” in India is always blurred and it is based on the Epics, which are and are not religious... so yeah in a way this “performance” or “play” is a “religious ritual”. Reading about Kathakali and actually going to a performance (although it was not fully traditional as those go on all night, and well, I like my sleep!!) are two very different things. There is a “script” they follow and the story line is from the “scriptures” (oh look at all the problems I am eclipsing with my use of quotation marks!! Relating back to the semantic theme of two weeks ago: “We are entering an era in which what we want to learn cannot be learned if our terminology overdetermines the theatre of engagement. It is an era in which our terms are best used as a minimalist set of props...” (Bell 220-221)... Sharf started off his essay by stating that defining ritual would be a “difficult and contentious task” (Sharf 245) so he just never did it... my kind of guy!... but I digress) But when it comes down to it, it is less to do with the well known story of Rama etc. more about the atmosphere, the insane costumes and the crazy eye movements.
There are manual texts in Sanskrit describing every aspect of performance. The section on appreciating performances talks about the levels of appreciation, from an ignorant viewer who just enjoys it for its entertainment value to the expert scholar who can appreciate every nuance in the performance. “Just as exposure to and training in music is necessary to appreciate musical performance, the appreciation of ritual entails the acquisition....[of] a skill acquired through early habituation and/or prolonged practice...” (Sharf 250). So in a way, you could say that because I had previously studies the tradition I appreciated it in a different way than the others watching (mostly tourists... but I myself was a tourist...so I can’t say anything).
Wow I totally just went off topic and randomly talked about random things. I intended to talk about rituals and text and instead talked about me... how narcissistic! Oops!
So what I am saying is that we cannot learn everything from books, some things must be experience first hand. This can be difficult and sometimes downright impossible (I could digress and narcissistically talk about my search for a theyyam ritual in the rainy season... but I wont indulge), but the actual aspect of living religion should never be forgotten, even if we are students who focus on text (like myself).
OK back to SSHRCing... or maybe sleep... sleep is good... mmmmmmmmm
5 comments:
Just a note on outsiders not being allowed to watch: there are groups of people who have declined to allow "outsiders" the privelege of observing/participating in local life because of histories of interaction with anthropologists and anthropology. Sometimes people feel that they are being taken advantage of for someone else's gain, sometimes people recognize that by allowing people into their inner lives they are changed by it. These are likely important issues in the study of human behaviour in general.
yes I agree with all this. There are always the problems of lessening the importance of something by "selling" it for outsiders
how "authentic" (oh such an awful word!) is something if it is made for others. IN anthropology, if one is fortunate enough to have been allowed to document an important event can they really be confident that they are witnessing it in its fully original form? or is the event slightly crafted or tailored for the viewer? how far is the event being bastardized or "sold out" in order to maybe bring in tourists and make money?
Cultural tourism does have a lot of negative effects. IN my study of sacred groves tourism actually has a very negative impact. These areas should not have people going in to them. They are very sensitive ecosystems. I was happy that they were so hard to find for me when I was a "tourist". I asked around but I got no answers! maybe the people actually had no idea what I was talking about, or maybe (as I hope is the case) they didnt want some stupid tourist going in and ruining the sites... I dont mind being labeled as a stupid tourist, i feel my intentions were right but the locals dont know that, and they should remain wary.
OK, it wasn't just me. That was a bit of a tangent. That's OK. It was an informative tangent.
It's interesting that there is Sanskrit prescriptive literature on how to appreciate a performance. Of course, most cultures have at least unspoken rules and expectations for audiences, but it's interesting that it is explicit in some Sanskrit material. How should something like that be framed when considering ritual/performance in an Indian (Sanskrit) context?
I also thought it was interesting that you mentioned the possibility of not liking India, comparing your experience to earlier scholars of India who might have never been or not liked the experience. How does it influence our perception and analysis of ritual/performance if we don't like the culture or land? The answer might seem obvious, but I wonder how often the question is seriously asked (especially self-reflexively by the research). I also wonder about the scholar who didn't like India the place but still kept studying it from his home country. Are purely intellectual pursuits less relevant academically than those carried out by researchers focused on experiential anlysis? That question could be worded better, but I'm not sure how right at the moment...
Yah reading *is* neat! Your comments about are really interesting, and the characterization of it not being a ritual ‘per we’ itself really speaks to the issues of the readings this week.
Could Kathakali not be constituted as ritual through various types of analyses? And how relevant would such a characterization be outside of analysis... and moreover, what relevance would such an analysis have and for whom? Your comment has inspired these questions..
Also, the difference between reading about Kathakali and actually going are interesting... but even being there, can it not still be read? That is, understood as a social text or a particular product of a social discourse that has structure and cogency and is authored according to something formally akin to genre..
As a participant—observer would these considerations help or hurt understanding.......
you all raised some good questions... Ryan: yeah, I wonder if not liking a place in reality would create more or less biases while pursuing purely academic research than if you LOVED the culture you were studying.
Jonathan: I think everything can be "read" in some way. That's hard to get away from...
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