Ritual as Communication
Body in Ritual - Communicating through Embodied Practices in Religious Ritual - Eva Kundtová Klocová
Eva Kundtová Klocová [+]
LEVYNA - Laboratory for the Experimental Research of Religion, Masaryk University
Eva Kundtová Klocová is a Research Fellow at LEVYNA (Laboratory for the Experimental
Research of Religion), Masaryk University, where she conducts both lab and field experiments and collaborates on cross-cultural and interdisciplinary research projects. Her main interests are embodiment theories of ritual, theories of ritual communication, evolutionary theories of religion, methodology of experimental research in humanities and social sciences, and cognitive theory in the study of religion. She has co-authored empirical studies concerning religious behaviour and beliefs; the effects of religious priming on parochial prosociality, belief in (non)moralizing gods and dishonest behaviour, signalling functions of extreme rituals as well as papers and chapters focusing on theoretical assumptions and methodological approaches to the study of religion; methodological approaches in cognitive historiography, theory of embodied cognition in
the study of religion. She directs the research infrastructure HUME Lab (Laboratory for Experimental Humanities) at Masaryk University and currently serves as the Secretary General of the International Association for the Cognitive and Evolutionary Sciences of Religion (IACESR).
Description
This chapter will present the relevant accounts of communication on individual, social, and symbolic levels and relate them to the study of religious rituals and the role of the body in them. I will argue that the body plays an important role in the compelling communication of religious ideas and attitudes, most prominently during rituals. The chapter will also provide a brief overview of the theoretical approach to communication, which is fundamental for the understanding of rituals presented in the book.