The Power of Rituals

Yesterday, I gave a seminar in Amsterdam. Treating myself to dinner afterwards, I was just in time to attend the Remembrance Day ceremony at the National Monument on Dam Square. During Remembrance Day, all over the country, we honour the dead of WWII, but increasingly, as time passes, also of other conflicts all over the world. It is a prelude to Liberation Day on May 5. From the official website:

The Netherlands has its own way of commemorating the Second World War and celebrating the country's liberation from five years of occupation. Unlike most countries, the Netherlands sets aside two days to mark these events. The first is a day of solemn commemoration; the second a day of public rejoicing with the young at the centre of attention. After a day of looking back at the past, the nation turns its hopes to the future. On 4 and 5 May the Netherlands affirms its pledge to provide a haven for all its citizens.

The national ceremony in Amsterdam was a sober, and a very moving one. Thousands of people had gathered at the national liberation monument. At two minutes to eight, the Queen laid a wreath at the foot of the monument. After the Last Post had been played, at eight o'clock, there were two minutes of complete silence. Very powerful silence. Imagine that bustling Dam Square, with all these people saying nothing, and thereby saying so much at the same time. Next, the national anthem was played, the Prime Minister, and many other representatives of formal and civil society laid their wreaths, there were speeches, more music and the usual stuff. That silence, embedded in a simple but very symbolic ritual, created an incredible, palpable sense of community.

Now let's look at virtual communities. Where are their rituals? What is the role of rituals? When are they necessary: at start-up or some other lifecycle stage, during or after conflict, at regular intervals? What shape do or could these rituals take? How do they link with the usual stuff of moderating, facilitating, and motivating community members? Much more attention should be paid to these ephemeral, yet so important reflective parts of healthy, evolving communities...

Comments

[Suzana]

Rituals remember Victor Turner and his concept of communitas. I think this concept and Hakim Bey's TAZ and Bakhtin's studies of carnaval are the way to understand communities.
Sorry about my english. I'm brazilian and cannot write very well in english.
A hug and good luck in your research.

Su

[Jaap Wagenvoort]

Rituals are very interesting. I am personally heavily involved in a now five-year old virtual simracing (= gaming) community, which developed from 5 members at the start to over 600 at present.

What I observe is an important role for rituals, especially during racing (and a less visible role for rituals in the forums et cetera). For example, when a driver leaves the pits on a track, it is a ritual (no formal procedure) to state 'po', which is the abbreviation of (I'm on my way) 'pits out'. The purpose of this message is to inform drivers on-track that a slower driver (with cold tyres) is entering the track. New members sooner or later ask: "What is 'po'?". After explanation 9 out of 10 drivers immediately starts using 'po' while racing.

It is no formal, top-down restricted rule. It is just something that everyone does, more like a 'shared rule'. It creates an atmosphere of understanding and being a close community.

In my opinion and from my personal experience I am of the opinion that rituals are crucial for the community-sense of the members. During the 'start-up' phase rituals are crucial to create shared norms between the new members (who are in the process getting to know each other and their roles) and in 'operation' phase rituals play an important role in helping 'newbies' to integrate, feel comfortable and 'at home' in the virtual community.

I think that achieving this comfortable feeling and shared norms is of importance particularly for virtual gaming communities, because of the fact that in these kind of vc's members actually compete against each other most of the time.

The balance between 'war' on-track and 'friendship' off-track is an interesting one and hard to manage as organisation. Many virtual gaming communities rapidly went down to the 'winding down' and 'shutting down' phase because of (suddenly) lacking this balance, resulting in big fights off-track, eventually causing the organisation to stop all efforts which is the end of the community.

Rituals can help avoiding fights in giving members of the virtual communities a feeling of shared thoughts and mindset, which leads to respecting each other's opinions in a better way (even in case of contradicting arguments).

That is a better way to deal with the risk of fights then trying to solve every fight after it exploded and therefore rituals are an important tool to increase the lifecycle (operating phase) of virtual communities in my opinion.

Jaap Wagenvoort

[Aldo de Moor]

Jaap wrote:

Rituals can help avoiding fights in giving members of the virtual communities a feeling of shared thoughts and mindset, which leads to respecting each other's opinions in a better way (even in case of contradicting arguments).

Interesting. So, you see rituals especially as having a conflict prevention role in virtual communities. I agree, this is important. Much theoretical work has been done on conflict resolution, but of course, as a Dutch saying goes "To prevent is better than to cure".

[shoes justin bieber]

The first is a day of solemn commemoration; the second a day of public rejoicing with the young at the centre of attention.