Yesterday I briefly reviewed some of the objections that Bell makes to attempting to theorize ritual. However, her program is not completely negative. She does think that it is possible to still write about ritual in interesting ways. But she insists that the best way forward is not to theorize ritual but to use a framework. For Bell, the difference between theory and framework is that a framework makes fewer demands on the object under investigation. So for example, while in theories about ritual scholars making claims about the role that ritual plays in mediating belief and action or in mediating the individual and society, a framework does not provide the space for making claims about the role of everything single ritual. In other words, a framework does not mean that it is impossible to say anything but rather that the claims are more modest.
The other claim that Bell defends in her book is that it makes sense to approach ritual as a practice. Bell notes that practice is a work that first gets serious attention in Marx, and while she acknowledges that, she relies mainly on Bourdieu’s thoughts on practice.
Bell explains that she highlights four features of practice when she calls ritual practice: “Practice is (1) situational; (2) strategic; (3) embedded in a misrecognition of what it is in fact doing; and (4) able to reproduce or reconfigure a vision of the order of power in the world.” (page 81) Bell then further clarifies that she uses the term “redemptive hegemony” to explain the fourth term, but I’m positive that I can spend an entire blog post on that term alone and so I’m going to hold off on that until later.
By emphasizing that practice is situational, Bell argues against any attempts to abstract practice. This idea owes a lot to Bourdieu and Foucault, as both of them argue against abstracting discussions away from the body. To provide something that resembles an example that might make the preceding sentence more clear, one of the reasons that Bourdieu advanced his ideas on practice was to elevate the importance of the body and the corporeal sense against idea that people are making calculations based on economics.
This line of reasoning from Bourdieu is actually quite important for ancient manumission because one of the more intriguing theories about why and how Greeks and Romans freed slaves when they did come from the scholar Keith Hopkins. Hopkins provides an economic rationale for why the Greeks and Romans freed their slaves, specifically he thinks that by freeing slaves at the end of their lives, slave-owners reap the benefit of the slave’s payment for manumission, payment that they can then use to buy a new slave.
Now this economic analysis may be true, but can it explain all the aspects of manumission? Bourdieu’s thought on practice, which Bell emphasizes are particularly important for ritual, would say that such an economic perspective abstracts away key aspects of manumission. For example, Hopkins applies his analysis primarily to the manumission inscriptions at Delphi. His economic analysis says nothing about the role of the priests, the guarantors and the inscription itself as part of this ritual. In contrast, Bourdieu’s approach of ritual as practice and practical sense explains why the Greeks at Delphi continued practicing this particular form of manumission for hundreds of years. That is, it is not so much that they had an economic reason to do so, but because they had taught each other that this is the way to do manumission.
Such a perspective may sound like the reduction of ritual to a dead tradition that a culture cannot shake off. Bell intercepts this dimension when she perceives that ritual is also strategic. Bell quotes Bourdieu in order to emphasize the dynamic aspect of practice, that it is “the intentionless invention of regulated improvisation.” Through this phrase, Bourdieu reminds us that nothing repeated is exactly the same, that even when we seek to replicate a previous action, we are inventing at the same time that we repeating.
The other claim that Bell defends in her book is that it makes sense to approach ritual as a practice. Bell notes that practice is a work that first gets serious attention in Marx, and while she acknowledges that, she relies mainly on Bourdieu’s thoughts on practice.
Bell explains that she highlights four features of practice when she calls ritual practice: “Practice is (1) situational; (2) strategic; (3) embedded in a misrecognition of what it is in fact doing; and (4) able to reproduce or reconfigure a vision of the order of power in the world.” (page 81) Bell then further clarifies that she uses the term “redemptive hegemony” to explain the fourth term, but I’m positive that I can spend an entire blog post on that term alone and so I’m going to hold off on that until later.
By emphasizing that practice is situational, Bell argues against any attempts to abstract practice. This idea owes a lot to Bourdieu and Foucault, as both of them argue against abstracting discussions away from the body. To provide something that resembles an example that might make the preceding sentence more clear, one of the reasons that Bourdieu advanced his ideas on practice was to elevate the importance of the body and the corporeal sense against idea that people are making calculations based on economics.
This line of reasoning from Bourdieu is actually quite important for ancient manumission because one of the more intriguing theories about why and how Greeks and Romans freed slaves when they did come from the scholar Keith Hopkins. Hopkins provides an economic rationale for why the Greeks and Romans freed their slaves, specifically he thinks that by freeing slaves at the end of their lives, slave-owners reap the benefit of the slave’s payment for manumission, payment that they can then use to buy a new slave.
Now this economic analysis may be true, but can it explain all the aspects of manumission? Bourdieu’s thought on practice, which Bell emphasizes are particularly important for ritual, would say that such an economic perspective abstracts away key aspects of manumission. For example, Hopkins applies his analysis primarily to the manumission inscriptions at Delphi. His economic analysis says nothing about the role of the priests, the guarantors and the inscription itself as part of this ritual. In contrast, Bourdieu’s approach of ritual as practice and practical sense explains why the Greeks at Delphi continued practicing this particular form of manumission for hundreds of years. That is, it is not so much that they had an economic reason to do so, but because they had taught each other that this is the way to do manumission.
Such a perspective may sound like the reduction of ritual to a dead tradition that a culture cannot shake off. Bell intercepts this dimension when she perceives that ritual is also strategic. Bell quotes Bourdieu in order to emphasize the dynamic aspect of practice, that it is “the intentionless invention of regulated improvisation.” Through this phrase, Bourdieu reminds us that nothing repeated is exactly the same, that even when we seek to replicate a previous action, we are inventing at the same time that we repeating.