**3. Outline of This Special Issue**

The eight articles of this Special Issue represent both the ritual fields and repertoires, as described in the first section, and ritual studies as an academic, multidisciplinary platform, as described in the second section.

In her work, Joanna Wojtkowiak represents the field of life cycle rituals in her exploration of the ritualization of pregnancy and childbirth. While traditional birth rituals have been decreasing in popularity, new rituals have emerged, such as mother blessings and humanist naming ceremonies. Her article is a good example of the dynamics of rituals in showing that in a new, cultural environment, new rituals are invented, re-invented, and transferred from one context to another.

The articles by Albertina Nugteren, Sam Goyvaerts et al., Christoph Jedan et al., and Kim van der Weegen et al. fit in the same category of life cycle rituals. Albertina Nugteren critically reviews Western responses to Hindu widow-burning in India. Although this rare ritual practice has been banned for almost 200 years, it still evokes Western interest and criticism. Nugteren pleas for a contextual approach of rituals and, in accordance with it, a place- and time-sensitive type of ritual criticism. What strikes us as especially insightful in her well-informed article is the fact that Western scholars, through the culturally determined terminology they use, do not really understand the full meaning and impact of a ritual. Regarding "co-cremation," a concept that reflects a Western view of an Indian Hindu ritual practice, Nugteren writes the following:

It was not the death of her husband that had made her a widow, but her choice between two rituals would make her either a widow (containing everything the life and status of a widow implied) or a *sat¯ı*. For her, this was not simply a choice between life and death, but a choice between two religious paths, either of which would define her as a good woman, and would define both rituals as demonstrating her womanly power for the salvation of her husband. Whatever choice she would make, this soteriological power changed her, momentarily, from a victim to a victor.

Sam Goyvaerts and Nikolaas Vande Keere investigate the transformation of a Roman Catholic Church into a contemporary space for spirituality and commemoration. The concept of place is key in their study, as they link recent changes in funeral rituals in Flanders, Belgium, with the adaptive reuse project of a small church, which has been re-designed as a columbarium church, with the surrounding landscape being used for a spiritual and ritual "journey." This symbolizes the transition from life to death and from a life with the physical presence of the deceased to a life without it. Rather than considering the reuse of the church a spiritual loss, Goyvaerts and Vande Keere show how it can offer

<sup>16</sup> https://www.windesheim.nl/onderzoek/deskundigen/mulder (accessed on 8 October 2020).

<sup>17</sup> https://www.totzover.nl/done/ (accessed on 8 October 2020).

the opportunity to reinforce and open up the traditional symbolic and ritual meaning of the Christian liturgy to the larger community. The article by Goyvaerts and Vande Keere demonstrates that ritual fields overlap. Accordingly, the article fits the fields of religion (through the church building and Christian liturgy) and life cycle rituals (through cremation and death rituals) with a close link to memory culture (i.e., the columbarium as materialization of memory).

In the article by Christoph Jedan, Sonja Kmec, Thomas Kolnberger, Eric Venbrux, and Mariske Westendorp, place is the key concept as they analyze a cemetery in the south of the Netherlands as a ritual space. From a ritual-spatial perspective, they show how cemeteries not only form an ensemble of ritual spaces that are reliant on preexisting communities, but they also evoke, produce, and maintain communities. Using several spatial theories, the authors consider the cemetery as a pluralistic ritual space that is continuously (re)constituted and (re)negotiated by administrators, users, and their allies.

A fourth and last article in the field of life cycle rituals is presented by Kim van der Weegen, Martin Hoondert, Agnes van der Heide, and Madeleine Timmermann. In this case, the authors investigate ritualized care practices in a hospice using an open and broad approach to rituals and ritual-like practices. In doing so, they distinguish between several types of rituals: (1) Care practices in the morning, (2) meals, (3) care practices in the evening, (4) care practices in the dying phase, and (5) a farewell ritual after a patient has died. Some of these practices are part of the daily routines, while others fit the category of life cycle rituals. Due to the environment of the hospice and the situation of the patients in the phase of dying, all actions take on a symbolic significance in their relation to the moral value of the "good death."

Another article regarding the reuse of church buildings is presented by Kim de Wildt, in which she focuses on the circumstances that precede the reuse of (Roman Catholic) church buildings: The deconsecration or profanation of the building. As such, the article fits the ritual field of religion. De Wildt explores the tension between the "legitimate" way (in the sense of canon law) to deconsecrate a church building and the growing pastoral need for deconsecration rites. With respect to deconsecration rites, a shift has taken place in the perception of reasons as to why such a rite should be conducted. In contrast to historical requirements that were mainly focused on such acts for the purpose of defining the "legitimate" way of relegating the church to profane use, the well-being of the affected parishioners today seems to be the main reason for the performance of such rites. Based on her critical review of current ritual practices, De Wildt proposes a distinction between the act of church deconsecration and the last farewell celebration.

The two remaining articles belong to the field of religion. Thomas Quartier, a Benedictine monk himself, answers the question of what ritual practices laypersons affiliated with a particular Benedictine monastery (so-called oblates) perform. The key concept in this article is "ritual transfer," through which monastic rituals, which are partly calendrical, are transferred to a new context (i.e., the lives of laypersons living outside the monastery). Quartier's qualitative research sheds some insight into the difficulties of transferring Christian, monastic rituals to a secular context. In the other article, John Eade reflects on two totally different types of pilgrimage: the one to the Catholic shrine of Lourdes, France, and the one to the pre-Christian shrine of Avebury, England. The focus of his research is on leadership, power, and authority in ritual invention and performance. In particular, the pilgrimage to Avebury shows the overlap of the ritual fields, as many walkers are not involved in institutional religion and express a wide variety of reasons for traveling along both ancient and emerging routes of pilgrimage. The popularity of walking seems to be an important impetus for the increasing popularity of such pilgrimages. An overlap of the fields of religion (sacred sites), leisure culture (walking), and memory culture (heritage) seems to position the pilgrimage as a successful and popular ritual despite secularization and a decrease in church attendance.

The articles in this Special Issue show the dynamics of rituals in current societies. These dynamics are not only linked to the changing character of the rituals themselves, but also to the overlapping of the ritual fields and the transfer between them.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
