Coping Rituals in Fearful Times

Book excerpt: This collection of articles reveals ritual to be a unique and powerful asset in healing trauma and broken relationships. Each contribution offers insights on how, in the face of uncertainty, threat and dislocation, human beings feel compelled to 'do something’, usually with or for others, to alleviate their anxiety, fears and sense of powerlessness. The editor and authors demonstrate how the imaginative processes at the heart of ritualmaking contribute to self- and group regulation by healing and mitigating the negative impact of trauma on individuals, collective groups, and even global systems. The authors are a group of remarkable scholars, researchers and practitioners who represent a diverse range of disciplines and subfields, including archaeology, Chinese studies, digital culture, ecological science, philosophy, psychology, psychotherapy, the politics of memory and the preservation of cultural heritage in wartime, ritual anthropology, social research, physics, research on traumatic stress, and peace studies. Students and researchers across the social and behavioural sciences will find this volume useful.