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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.

The study aims to examine how different types of green brand ritual (GBR) influence customer engagement behavior and the mediation mechanisms and boundary conditions of the positive and negative pathways.

The study conducts two online experiments to collect data from a total of 940 consumers in China. Hypotheses are tested by independent samples t-test, two-way ANOVA and Hayes' PROCESS model.

Different kinds of GBR have different effects on customer engagement behavior. Internal GBR is more likely to play a positive role by inciting connectedness to nature. External GBR is more likely to play a negative role by inciting psychological resistance. This dual effect is especially pronounced for warm brands rather than competent brands.

The study pioneers the brand ritual into the field of interactive marketing and enriches its dual effect research. Additionally, the study figures out whether the category of brand ritual can trigger negative effect.

Inappropriate brand rituals are worse than no rituals at all. The results provide guidance for green companies to design effective brand rituals to strengthen the connection with consumers. Green brands should describe brand rituals in vivid detail and consciously lead consumers to immerse themselves in them.

This chapter examines the historical relationship between Honduran Lenca worldview and how ecological resources are managed through ritual practice. The way in which the Lenca conceive of the biophysical environment is an active process of meaning-making that takes place through their interaction with the environment. The Lenca codify this relationship in the compostura, a complex set of ceremonial performances linked to economic practices that mediate human needs and desires with those of the ancestors who animate the landscapes surrounding households and communities. Through an examination of contemporary, historical, and archeological cases in western Honduras, this chapter explores how ritual economy shapes, and is shaped by, environmental worldview.

The archaeological record of small-scale societies is replete with examples of people expending considerable labor to craft both places and objects for communal rituals. Archaeologists often infer these efforts to have been the product of aspiring elites. This chapter focuses instead on the larger community responsible for the construction of places and objects, through a ritual economy analysis of the social logic people use to organize the production of ritual places and paraphernalia. A review of ethnographic and archaeological data suggests that the production of communal ritual places often involves the creation of sociograms, while the production of objects for use within these places encompasses a web of complementary and competitive relations. Two examples of large-scale communal ritual spaces, the early British Neolithic causewayed enclosures and the Ohio Hopewell geometric earthworks, are explored in light of these ethnographic and archaeological patterns.

This paper presents a framework to study organizational change using the metaphor of ritual. Concepts of myth and ritual facilitate understanding of change interventions. A qualitative study of Appreciative Inquiry helped answer the question: what mechanisms or processes explain the effect of the Appreciative Inquiry Summit? Four mechanisms, based on qualitative interviews and anthropological and sociological theory, explain why the AI Summit produces organizational change: (1) internal dialogue: recognizing a positive dimension and new vocabulary at the individual, interpersonal, and organizational levels of analysis; (2) communitas: the mechanism whereby new relationships form due to relational anti-structure; (3) commitment: how organization members cognitively and cathectically commit to the organization; and (4) longitudinal repetition: how sustained and continuous change involves repetition of ritual practices and the recognition.

Conflict resolution theory and practice have often neglected the contributions of women in peacebuilding. To obtain a more balanced perspective, the work of women's movements, peace movements, and other social movements have attempted to highlight the importance of women's roles in society and their active participation in peacemaking activities throughout the world. This study hopes to contribute to recognizing gender in conflict resolution by examining the rituals of conflict resolution in Laos and the legacy of women working for peace. Through this gender lens, it highlights the importance of Lao women's work in the soukhouan ceremony, a conflict resolution ritual that is integral to Lao culture. The soukhouan ritual demonstrates characteristics that are vital to any peacebuilding effort, specifically how women are actively working to repair harm, restore relationships, and organize support networks that are essential for reconciliation in communities experiencing conflict. This research adds to conflict resolution literature that validates how women are playing a vital role in all stages of peacebuilding.

This chapter addresses the issue of how special collective ritual events operate and influence actors’ emotional states and commitment to a group. It is argued that in such events (e.g., rallies, holiday celebrations, and religious ceremonies) the greater the emotional intensity experienced by persons, the greater will be their commitment to and solidarity within the group. A model is proposed, which identifies several factors involved in such a process. The model builds on a body of theory and research, “structural ritualization theory (SRT),” which focuses on the role symbolic rituals play in social interaction and the generation and transformation of social structure. Four factors play a crucial role in the model: focus of attention, interactional pace, interdependence, and resources. Several of these factors also involve subcomponents that are identified and discussed. Attention is directed to how the formulation presented here is influenced by, and differs in certain ways from, classic and contemporary analysts including those working in the areas of social psychology and the sociology of emotions. Various examples are provided to illustrate the ability of the model to understand collective ritual events. Directions for further theory development and possible research investigating the arguments of the theory are also discussed.

Consumption ritual has been used to understand the meanings of consumption and consumer behavior, however less attention has been focused on the role of ritual in connoisseurship consumption and how consumption rituals can transform the consumer’s tastes. What is the role played by consumption ritual in connoisseurship taste?

Drawing on key concepts from ritual and taste theories and a qualitative analysis of the North American specialty coffee context, the authors address this question introducing the idea of connoisseurship taste ritual which is based on novelty coffee consumption practices that are opposite of the traditional or regular practices. The data collection set in the United States and Canada includes 15 consumer in-depth interviews, participant observation in 36 independent coffee shops in Canada and the United States, a Specialty Coffee Association of America event, and three barista coffee competitions. The body of qualitative data was interpreted using a hermeneutic approach.

The authors introduce the connoisseurship taste ritual which has several dimensions: (1) variation in the choices of high-quality products, (2) the place to perform the tasting, (3) the moment of tasting, (4) the tasting act, (5) perseverance, and (6) time and money investment.

This research paper extends the notion of consumption ritual introducing the connoisseurship taste ritual and also extends the theories of taste by explaining how, regarding a specific aesthetic category of product, people develop different tastes through ritualistic consumption.

In this study we aim to examine a Durkheimian solution to the problem of social cooperation. Drawing on relevant literature on rituals and social solidarity, we make a case that both synchronous and complementary ritualistic acts can promote social cooperation by strengthening solidarity.

We used a lab experiment in which participants performed either synchronous, complementary, or uncoordinated group drumming. After the drumming, they self-reported their positive affect, feeling of being in the same group and trust. Then they played a five-round public goods game in which their levels of cooperation were observed.

We found both synchrony and complementarity help sustain group cooperation. Participants who drummed synchronously or complementarily contributed more to the public good than those in the baseline condition, especially in later rounds of the game. Individuals in the synchronous and complementary conditions also showed stronger feelings of being in the same group. Mediation analysis confirmed that the effects of ritual performance on cooperation are partially mediated by feelings of same-groupness.

Results of our study imply that ritual performance based on either members’ similarities or complementary differences can promote group solidarity and cooperation.

The study supports the classic Durkheimian solution to the problem of social cooperation. Consistent with recent research, we find the causal effect of synchrony on cooperation. Moreover, our new test of the effect of complementarity shows that being different but mutually supportive can effectively enhance solidarity and cooperation as well.

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.