Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Kurovskaya, Elina
• Gobin, Emma
• Fanciulli, Francesca
• Cittone, Jean
• Hamberger, Klaus
• Unger, Leoni
• Heslon, Mathilde
• La Rossa, Maurizio Esposito
• Houseman, Michael
• Salot, Robin

Titel

"The Red and the Black Mark II": Criss-crossing feedback from a ritual experiment

Ist Teil von

• Homme, 2021-07, Vol.3/4 (239/340), p.25

Ort / Verlag

Paris: Editions de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales

Erscheinungsjahr

2021

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• In the 1990s, Michael Houseman introduced in his courses an initiation ritual called The Red and the Black. Designed to be an experimental, pedagogical tool to study the interactional dynamics of ritual, it entailed having male candidates undergo a series of ordeals in the presence of a female audience. While intervening in the ritual, the females remained at a sufficient distance such that, as in "classic" initiation rites, certain aspects of these events remained beyond their grasp. A generation later, in 2018, a new version of the ritual emerged, incorporating a full-fledged female initiation. This did not however make gender relations any more symmetrical, for most of the men did not even realize that a female initiation had taken place, and the women were mindful not to tell them. Observant participation was employed here to better understand the sensory, affective, and cognitive workings of such asymmetries that are part of a set of spatial and interactional devices commonly used in initiation rites to polarize genders. The resulting multivocal article, written partially collectively and partially separately by the initiates and by the ritual's initiators, sheds light on the ritual, pedagogical and ethnographic dimensions of this experiment, on the basis of the participants' notes. Producing this document by gradually transforming scattered, personal notes, memories and thoughts into a collective, public text, also raised questions about the disclosure of secrets. In dealing with these various issues, this article seeks to elucidate the gender- and generation-based relations involved in this experience, by considering both what they make manifest and what they leave in the dark.