Making things sacred

Re-theorizing the nature and function of sacrifice in modernity

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2404751
AutoresChris Shilling (0000-0003-2930-9223, University of Kent, autor correspondente), P A Mellor (0000-0001-6954-4442, University of Leeds)
Ano2013
Volume13
Fascículo3
Páginas319-337
Data de publicação2013-08-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Classical Sociology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1468-795X • E-ISSN: 1741-2897
EditoraSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1468795x13480643
OpenAlexW2312645696
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas7
Referências citadas35

The sociological importance attributed to 'the sacred' has varied historically as theorists have sought to explain the relationship between religion and early capitalism, the rise of twentieth-century secularization processes, the profusion of nationalism in post-Soviet societies, and the recent global upsurge in religious movements. Paradoxically, however, sociology's concern with the social significance of the sacred has not been accompanied by commensurate interest in those contrasting and varied sacrificial processes implicated in creating the sacred. This paper suggests that this imbalance limits our understanding of the relationship between the sacred, religion and society, and makes it difficult to assess the contemporary relevance of classical writings on the subject. Specifically, it hinders our knowledge of why certain phenomena become sacred, and in so doing limits our appreciation of how societies develop cultural priorities, of how they stimulate individuals to become certain types of social subjects, and of the risks and opportunities that arise in milieux characterized by shrinking or expanding prospects for creating sacred phenomena. This is because sacrifice ( sacer facere), 'the making of sacred things', constitutes a crucial mediator of these phenomena; illuminating the nature and consequences of specific modalities of sacred rituals, actions and objects, and revealing much about their location within or dislocation from particular social milieux, identities and religions. Our argument progresses by viewing sacrifice as an example of what Mauss refers to as a 'total social fact', and by engaging with the writings of Bataille, Girard and Simmel; three figures to have made important, sociologically underexplored, contributions to the subject. In so doing, we aim to lay the foundations for a sociology of the contemporary nature and function of sacrifice, suggesting it should be a core issue for twenty-first-century sociology

Aesthetics · Capitalism · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Modernity · Political science · Politics · Sacrifice · Secularization · Sociology · Law · Philosophy · Religion and Society in Latin America · Religion and Society Interactions · Religious studies · Religious Tourism and Spaces