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Ritual economy is a theoretical approach for understanding and explaining the ways in which worldview, economy, power, and human agency interlink in society and social change. Defined as the “process of provisioning and consuming that materializes and substantiates worldview for managing meaning and shaping interpretation,” this approach forefronts the study of human engagement with social, material, and cognitive realms of human experience. This chapter explores the theoretical roots of ritual economy and how they are expressed in this volume's contributions, which ground the discussion in actual case studies applied to both capitalistic and noncapitalistic settings across a number of different cultural contexts. By knitting together two realms of inquiry that often are sequestered into separate domains of knowledge, ritual economy exposes for analysis how the process of materializing worldview through ritual practice structures economic behavior without determining it.

This chapter summarizes and discusses the volume's contributions toward developing a theory of ritual economy. To move ahead, an appropriate analytical vocabulary must be developed and tested. Useful concepts explored in this volume's chapters include “materialization,” “provisioning,” “consumption,” and “transaction,” as well as more specialized terms, such as “ritual mode of production,” “meta-power,” and “liturgical economic allocations.” Future work should consider breaking down analyses into those that deal with ritual economy as it reinforces existing socio-political structures versus those that deal with the transformative qualities of ritual economy. Additionally, future work should examine the “ritualization of materiality,” by drawing sharper distinctions between political economy and ritual economy, and by linking the ritual economy approach to material engagement theories.

This chapter uses the ritual economy approach to examine what can be called “liturgical” economic allocations, which are made by private individuals and can comprise a significant percentage of a society's total expenditures on public works. Such allocations are driven by tournaments of honor that emphasize highly visible acts and public evaluations of status, which turn on one's willingness to put at risk what is most highly valued in society. Unlike philanthropy, participation in these tournaments is necessary to achieve and maintain citizenship, but unlike taxation, where rates are imposed from above, what is given is determined by a complex social negotiation. The chapter argues that the relativity of honor gives such systems a particular dynamic, which is illustrated in several case studies.

This chapter presents an auto-ethnographic journey into the world of women's bodybuilding and the role performance-enhancing drugs play in the pursuit of muscularity in this growing, but hard-to-reach, subculture. The research addresses a paucity in the literature and paves the way for further research to inform public health initiatives for this population. Synthesizing journal entries, field observations and informal conversations recorded over the course of 18 months, this chapter provides insight into the rituals and practices present in bodybuilding culture. This embodied narrative explores the decision-making process surrounding anabolic androgenic steroid use in the context of competitive endeavour, including the impact that cultural norms, peer influence and personal narrative have on their uptake. It also sheds light on the experiences of being a woman in a man's world and the additional stigma women face when attempting to increase their muscularity. It also highlights the personal and professional challenges involved in auto-ethnographic endeavour.

Purpose – To examine how John Stuart Mill’s harm principle can guide debates surrounding definitions of radicalization, extremism, and deradicalization.

Methodology/Approach – This chapter begins by surveying definitional debates in terrorism studies according to three identified binaries: (1) cognitive versus behavioral radicalization; (2) violent extremism versus non-violent extremism; and (3) deradicalization versus disengagement. The author then interprets Mill’s harm principle and assesses which interpretation researchers and policy-makers should favor.

Findings – Applying the harm principle suggests that researchers and policy-makers should prefer behavioral over cognitive radicalization, violent over non-violent extremism, and disengagement over deradicalization. This is because government intervention in people’s lives can be justified to prevent direct risks of harm, but not to change beliefs that diverge from mainstream society.

Originality/Value – This chapter extends previous work that applied the harm principle to coercive preventive measures in counter-terrorism. It makes an original contribution by applying the principle to definitional debates surrounding radicalization and counter-radicalization. The harm principle provides researchers and policy-makers with a compass to navigate these debates. It offers an analytical method for resolving conceptual confusion.

In this short piece, written from the authors’ particular perspective as co-chairs of the Globalization & Education Special Interest Group (SIG) of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES), they argue that the field of comparative and international education is fraught with contradictions. This chapter reflects on the implications for the field of three interrelated aspects in particular: the shift in the primary responsibility for education from the nation-state to non-state actors in our globalized world, the unsettled ontological assumptions of the field, and the lack of theory that informs some of its actors.

Purpose – The chapter explores the use of freedom of information (ATI/FOI) requests in social science research, with specific focus on using ATI/FOI requests in socio-legal studies, criminal justice studies, and criminology.

Methodology/approach – ATI/FOI requests constitute a novel method of data collection that has methodological and also epistemological implications for researchers.

Findings – The chapter explains how to use ATI/FOI requests in social science as well as how to navigate challenges and barriers ATI/FOI users regularly face.

Originality/value – There is a paucity of writings on use of ATI/FOI requests in socio-legal studies, criminal justice studies, and criminology. The chapter reveals the value of using ATI/FOI in social science and the originality of the data that ATI/FOI requests can result in.