Advertising research has focused exclusively on the solitary subject at the expense of understanding the role that advertising plays within the social contexts of group interaction. We develop a number of explanations for this omission before describing the results of an ethnographic study of advertising’s contribution to the everyday interactions of adolescent informants at a number of English...

The Y'Apyrehyt community, one of three belonging to the Sateré-Mawé indigenous people found on the outskirts of Manaus, is located in a former nature reserve, the Parque das Seringueiras. The community comprises 67 people, adults and children, who live from the income obtained from tourists paying to see the Tucandeira Ant Ritual and from the sale of craftwork. Even with the Magic Oar - the pur...

What does science say about the nature of mind? Are there many minds or just one that manifests itself through the individual’s experience? Do masks used in ritual or secular performance tell us something about the nature of mind? Is the archaic mind close, in some manner, to the sensibility of the postmodern age and where does the Indian evidence stand on it? How might ideas of mind’s powers a...

Ethnographic methods were used to study daily occupations and weekly routines of four young Orthodox Jewish couples living in Los Angeles. Data from interviews and participant observation demonstrate the importance to the couples of fulfilling God's commandments [Hebrew, mitzvot], which organize and sanctify the otherwise mundane activities of daily living, such as eating, bathing sleeping, and...

We investigate the relationship between religion and trust. Using a questionnaire, we measure: i) general religiosity, and; ii) the extent of religious beliefs, experience, and ritual. These are then analyzed with behavior in a trust game (Berg et al., Games and Economic Behavior, 1995), which we also extend by providing information of a potential trustee’s religiosity in certain tasks. We find...

This article applies the theoretical framework of 'ritual failure', a sub-discipline of ritual criticism, to Paul's discussion of circumcision in his letter to the Galatians, Philippians and Romans. It is argued that the application of this theoretical perspective clarifies the dynamics at stake and provides a new way of understanding the development in Paul's position regarding circumcision. Th...

This original research on Restoration Shinto Norito seeks to explain the rhetorical devices used in the composition of a morning prayer ritual text. The nativist scholar, Hirata Atsutane, crafted this ritual to create a Japanese imperial subject with a particular understanding of native identity and national unity, appropriate to the context of a Japan in the shadow of impending modernity and f...

This essay provides an outline and a history of the theory of performance. This new macro-sociological theory reconfigures the concept of ritual into a more complex model of social action as lying in the continuum between the analytic poles of successful and failed performances. I argue that the more complex and segmented social and cultural structures become, the more the elements of performan...

OBJECTIVE To examine how one aspect of family life, notably family rituals and routines, may protect children with asthma from anxiety-related symptoms. METHODS Eighty-six families (43 children with asthma, 43 healthy comparison children) participated in the study. Children completed measures of anxiety (Revised Child Manifest Anxiety Scale) and health. Parents completed measures of stress (P...