Bingo! Holy play in experience-oriented society

Bibliographic Data

ID18959656
AuthorsKees De Groot (0000-0002-7479-6238, Tilburg University, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume64
Issue2
Pages194-205
Publication date2017-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Compass (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0037-7686 • E-ISSN: 1461-7404
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0037768617697392
PMID28919650
OpenAlexW2607094159
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited17

What place is there for holy play in experience-oriented society? Is it possible and useful to make analytic distinctions between the liturgical quality of events? I explored these questions by doing research on the boundaries between the religious field and the field of leisure. Fifty site visits to public events in the Netherlands (2006–2014) resulted in a collection of ethnographic data. I used the concept of play as introduced by the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga and the tools of ritual studies to explore whether these could help to produce an account of the liturgical quality of ritualized meetings. Holy play might be found in unexpected places, such as in a bingo hall. Huizinga’s broad diagnosis of modernity may be outdated, but the tools he introduced remain useful to distinguish the elements that constitute late-modern meetings as more or less playful – even when this involves combinations that seem contradictory from Huizinga’s own point of view

Aesthetics · Epistemology · Ethnography · Field (mathematics) · Modernity · Quality (philosophy) · Social science · Sociology · Anthropology · Culinary Culture and Tourism · Philosophy · Religious Tourism and Spaces · Sport and Mega-Event Impacts

Tools

Open DOISci-HubOpen Access