Ritual, Resistance, and Liberation

While ritual creates a shared and conventional world of human sociality and expresses and controls the meaning of experience, it also functions to set boundaries and promote normativity. This volume explores the intersections of ritual with mechanisms and forces of power such as patriarchy, tradition, colonialism, authoritarianism, and capitalism on the one hand and ritual’s potential for resistance, resilience, and restoration on the other hand. With links to ten countries - Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, India, Mexico, the Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, and the USA - the twelve contributors collectively demonstrate the ways in which ritual can operate as a mode of resistance and liberation. This collective work invites the reader to discursive and performative ritual spaces where painful histories are revisited, traumas of oppression are healed, and impossible futures of coexistence and flourishing are reimagined. This book is part of a new series of volumes co-published with the Council for World Mission’s DARE (Discernment and Radical Engagement) programme.