Ritual(A special domain of human activity, frame to distinguish from normal activity)• Repetitive and organized• Markedly different from everyday activity• Occur according to a culturally defined ritual schema• (You canknowna ritual without having seen one before)• Often connected to myth (symbolic systems that make action meaningful)• Provides a useful framework for the analysis of events• Doing ad saying certain things has broader effects in the world• Ritual can be understood as a forma of art or transformation-representation (look at rites of passage - life crisis events - move from one thing to something else - hard transition)Why have a coronation?Rites of Passage• An anthropological explanation for why so many people hate celebrating their birthday (bridezillas, not wanting to graduate)Stages• Separation: removes the participant from everyday life - shaving heads for army, wearing cap and gown - happens at socially decided point of time• Transition: as the ritual is happening participants are transitioning - vulnerable; liminality: ambiguous transitional stage or space created by a rite of passage, a space "betwixt and between"• People in liminal state are often seen as hazardous and in danger - special magical powers? Communitas: A minimally strutted group, often characterized by egalitarian groups, builds community, finds comfort with others, hazing, boot camp, SHARED SUFFERING• ReaggragationRites of passage define groups and create and maintain ties of kinshipKinship• Families who you can and can't have sex with• Ties involved in mating, birth, and nurturance• Forms of relatedness and alliance◦ "Dormcest" implies inappropriateness of relations• Studies of possibilities for alliance• Study of sex, birth, and nurturance• Recognizes biology as cultural◦ Understanding biological relatedness depend on who and where you are• Extends beyond biology• Describes most basic forms of affiliation and connection• Applies at multiple scales of social life◦ Deeply emotional relationships - who I want to see as family, who I wantto cut off◦ Financial relationships - not charging a family member◦ Legal relationships - must be cared for as babyImagined communities• People who don't know each other through face to face interaction• Yet feel that they have shared experience r interest◦ Colbert "nation"◦ People in the US who share and interest in founding fathersEckert• Why do anti-smoking campaigns fail/have limited success?• What do highschoolers get out of smoking? - Seems irrationalHigh school in the US• Students invested in forming friendship groups• Friendships and stylistic divisions shape relationships later in life◦ You probably speak the same way as the people you liked when you were 13Friendship in High school• Jocks and burnouts are members of typically opposed friendship groups• Burnouts wear flared pants - how you wear your pants cause judgmentJocks and BurnoutsDistinguished by:• Dress• Pronunciation and speech• Where they eat what they eat• Participation in school activities• What do they do after school• Attitudes towards smoking **• Understand their differences as local• Friendships within school• Attitudes towards school/Detroit• Class◦ Being a jock or burnout (and learning how to be one) prepares students for later class divisions• Gender◦ How one does "jock" or "burnout" things depends on genderFriendship groups are a wary to learn and create social differences that matter elsewhereForms of Relatedness• Matrilineality: Traces decent through the mother's family• Ptrilineality: traces descent through the father's family?Affinity?- connection via marriageConsanguinity - connection via blood? ? ?What counts as incest?Descent-Can be unilateral or bilateralWeird example, some believe you can get pregnant without having sex• How do currently common theories of conception influence our understanding of