Ritual Virtuality:
On the Potentialities and Possibilities of Worlds in the Anthropology of Bruce Kapferer
Keywords:
Bruce Kapferer, aestthetics, ontological turn, religion, ritual, virtualityAbstract
This article aims to analyze the concept of ritual virtuality in the anthropology of Bruce Kapferer. The approach centers on the thesis that states that a ritual could be understood in its own right as a creator of worlds, where virtuality produces images and intense, transformative sensory experiences on participants. In this sense, these experiences have an aesthetic effect that it is part of the creative potentialities of ritual. The article describes the complexities of virtuality by comparing three ethnographic contexts, where, as a result, images and the sensory experience are essential to its understanding. Finally, the article concludes with an analysis of the influence that the works of Bruce Kapferer have had on different theoretical anti-representational perspectives of ritual, particularly on phenomenological anthropology and the so-called ontological turn.
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