Topic
Rituals, Traditions, and Celebrations
Instructions
Contributions of Ritual, Tradition and Celebration in Developing and Maintaining Relational Community: Begin by defining rituals and traditions in the context of community, and how each influence each other. Discuss how tradition and rituals contribute to community identity and being in place with others. In this section, focus on family as community and discuss how rituals are an important part of community and can help individuals feel belonging. Next Occupational therapy’s increased understanding of rituals/tradition/family will be discussed and how it can contribute to an understanding of meaning in occupation as it occurs in the context of community. Focus on how rituals create meaning and how that meaning creates community with others. Occupational therapists can use these tools to make community, or help individuals successfully integrate into it. We need to know how being and becoming through tradition and rituals create community, and how their communities began because each person’s community is unique ( Include in the discussion of how occupational therapy’s increased understanding of your topic can contribute to an understanding of meaning in occupation as it occurs in the context of community. In other words, answer the “so what” question – Why should OT be interested in learning more about your topic?)
Answer preview
Ritual is a particularly practice that a person follows, providing a means for a group to engage in vast reaffirming of itself under shared experiences (Crepeau, 1995). Rituals offer a mechanism within which to generate meaning and serve a creative function in a particular social group. Some scholars have considered a ritual as a symbolic utilization of gesture and bodily movement in social situation for expression and articulation of certain meanings. Conversely, traditions in a community represents the family-constructed occasions, such as birthdays, reunions, and vacations, which are commonly continuing and largely follow generational trajectory of the family origin (Segal, 2004).
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