Approaching Ritual Economy

This book introduces the concept of socio-cosmic fields for the study of dynamics arising from the confrontation of local and global values. The contributions to this volume include case studies from Georgia, India, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. Each paper is based on intensive ethnographic fieldwork and focuses on particular forms of exchange and provisioning: preparation of sacred food (mahaprasad) in Puri (India), local forms of healing child diseases (kirene) in Kyrgyzstan, religious endowments (vaqf) in Mashhad (Iran), building new religious schools (madrassa) in northern Kyrgyzstan, the distribution of God's blessing (baraka) in Tajikistan, trading and debt relations (karis) in Tajikistan, renewal of deities (nabakalebara) in Odisha (India), feasting after making a pilgrimage (Hajj) in southern Kyrgyzstan and forms of consumption and morality (zneoba) in orthodox Georgian families. Every contributor to this volume raises the question how these forms of exchange and provisioning establish valued relations between the social and the cosmic fields.