Interrituality as a New Approach for Studying Interreligious Relations and Ritual Dynamics at Shared Pilgrimage Sites in Hatay, Turkey
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/isit.33618Keywords:
ritual, ethnographi, pilgrimage sites, interreligious relations, devotion, interritualityAbstract
Despite its distinct research agenda and focus on all kinds of relations emerging in religious encounters, interreligious studies still lack a clear empirical focus on the dynamics of ritual. This article aims to remedy this lacuna by introducing theoretical parameters for analysing ethnographic cases. It argues for a more refined approach to ritual as a major means in forming and transforming social relations and introduces interrituality substantiated by research on shared pilgrimage sites. Aside from the relevance of shared pilgrimage sites for maintaining interreligious relations and the ethnic and religious differences they imply, specific elements and features to rituals play a decisive role in the formation of interreligious relationships through ritual interaction at these sites. Through forms of coordinated and complementary devotion, interreligious relations are differentiated and organized in such a way that members of diverse religious communities interact with one another leading to both similarities and differences in ritual postures, gestures, and movements. This article demonstrates how the concept of interrituality elucidates the dynamics of interreligious relations and connects their different dimensions in ways which other approaches to interreligious studies have not done arguing that visits to shared pilgrimage sites are, in unique ways, coordinated and complemented through rituals of saint veneration.
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