Chinese Ritual and Politics (Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology, Series Number 34) - Hardcover

Ahern, Emily Martin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521236908 ISBN 13: 9780521236904

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1981

Synopsis

As a result of the strength and dominance of the centralized state, ritual action in China often takes its logic from political action. In this book Emily Ahern explores the implications of this. She argues that forms of control attempted ritually on non-human persons (gods and other spirits) in China parallel those forms of control which people regard as effective in ordinary life, namely political control, and draws important conclusions from this. She shows that in China it is possible to discard terms such as 'magic', which imply that acts directed to spirits operate on a different basis from acts in ordinary life. She also challenges claims in anthropology that, since they seem arbitrary and the actions of participants in them highly predictable, rituals support established authority. Her book will be of interest not only to specialists in Chinese studies, but to social anthropologists and others interested in the link between ritual and political processes.

About this title

Book Description

As a result of the strength and dominance of the centralized state, ritual action in China often takes its logic from political action. In this book Emily Ahern explores the implications of this. She argues that forms of control attempted ritually on non-human persons (gods and other spirits) in China parallel those forms of control which people regard as effective in ordinary life, namely political control.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1981
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521236908
• ISBN 13: 9780521236904
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 150