Search Results (8)

Water is the source of life and also the lifeline of cities. The reconstruction of secondary water supply systems is a key component of urban renewal reforms, and the collaborative governance of such projects has become a focal topic through academic research. In this article, we try to discover the path to successful “bottom-up” collaborative water governance with Collins’s theory of interaction ritual chains (IRC) through a case study of a secondary water supply reconstruction program in J Estate, Jinshan District, Shanghai. The case study involved a total of 104 households, and we employed convenience sampling for all households through door-to-door inquiries, which included semi-structured interviews and non-participant observations. A total of 15 households participated in our interview. This study demonstrates that repeated social interactive rituals, such as bodily co-presence, rhythmic synchronization, and shared signs, can stimulate the accumulation of residents’ emotional energy, which becomes the initial power to promote community water governance and, in return, becomes the driving force for sustained collective action and mutual trust. Drawing on Collins’s theory of IRC, this article fills a gap by explaining the symbolic mechanism driven by emotions and personal relationships that macro-level governance ignores. We also demonstrate the spillover effects of such social rituals and propose policy recommendations that governments should apply, using these rituals to mobilize and consolidate residents’ emotions to create a virtuous circle of collaborative governance. Full article

The close connection between community residents and tourists in heritage tourism sites strengthens the relationship between people and places. To explore the mechanisms of host–guest interaction and the driving factors of residents’ willingness to participate in tourism in heritage tourism destinations, this study adopts a mixed-method approach combining qualitative research and quantitative analysis. The results of the study show that host–guest symbiosis in heritage tourism destinations goes through four stages: identity qualification, bodily co-presence, common focus, and emotional solidarity. Quantitative research (SEM) reveals the impact of residents’ welcoming nature, emotional closeness, and sympathetic understanding towards tourists on the sense of community belonging, as well as the subsequent response of willingness to participate in tourism. Through the analysis of the host–guest interaction mechanisms and symbiotic relationships in heritage tourism sites, the key emotional factors influencing residents’ participation in tourism are revealed. Full article

This article aims to elaborate on Collins’ theory of Interaction Ritual Chains by proposing the concept of emotional ambience as a complement to emotional energy. Interaction ritual chains describe how collective actions and shared cognitive and affective orientations within a group contribute to feelings of unity and reverence towards the group’s symbols. Successful interaction rituals generate emotional energy (EE), leading to increased self assurance, enthusiasm, and initiative. Conversely, unsuccessful rituals diminish EE. The concept of EE pertains to the long-term impact of interaction rituals on individuals beyond immediate contexts. To capture emotions created and diffused in social settings, the term emotional ambience is suggested. Emotional ambience focuses on the collective emotional process in an interaction situation, enhancing our understanding of how common sentiments are cultivated among actors during interaction rituals. To facilitate the analysis of emotional ambience, a three-dimensional model is proposed, considering the valence, arousal, and strength of collective emotions. Methodologically, the study focuses on the emotional coordination of various communication elements, such as gestures, facial expressions, tone of voice, and rhythm of speech. Understanding the separation of emotional energy and emotional ambience is crucial, as even the mutual sharing of unpleasant emotions can generate emotional energy and strengthen social bonds. The reciprocal relationship between emotional energy and emotional ambience highlights how individuals’ emotional energy influences the emotional ambience of interactional situations. Full article

How can religious ritual foster solidarity in religiously diverse communities in times of crisis? This question is crucial in social contexts characterized by increasing religious and nonreligious diversity and ongoing intersecting crises associated with violence, inequality, and climate change. Solidarity is necessary both as an immediate response to crisis and to the pursuit of long-term solutions that address underlying causes. Situated in the literature on disaster ritual, this study draws on Randall Collins’ sociological theory of interaction ritual chains to analyze the weekly ritual of sharing “Joys and Concerns” followed by a “Meditation” practiced by a theistically diverse Unitarian Universalist congregation. Anchored in one year of ethnographic research in this community, it concludes that the trusted structures, shared stories, and embodied symbols associated with this practice contain the ritual ingredients necessary to produce social solidarity in response to personal and societal crises and may be a model to apply in other religiously diverse contexts. Full article

This study examined impacts of digital technology on a key component of the socioeconomic gap in education—gaps in student classroom engagement. Whereas print literacy has long been a source of such gaps, newer “digital divide” theories claim classrooms that use digital technology are perpetuating them further. However, these claims are not grounded in close empirical observation and may now already be dated. We aimed to advance understandings of the impact of digital technology on student engagement by examining robotics, tablets, and smart board usage across a range of classrooms, using a conceptual framework that blends theories of interaction ritual chains (IRC) and cultural capital (CC). Data came from observations and interviews with teachers and students in K-8 classrooms across 10 Ontario school boards. We report three major findings. First, almost all students across socioeconomic strata engaged easily and enthusiastically with digital technology. Second, technology spawned new classroom rituals and cultural valuations. Third, digital technology provided connections between school dictates and students’ peer-based and home lives. We argue that digital technology has the potential to narrow classroom engagement gaps that are generated by conventional print media. We end by discussing avenues for future research. Full article

Social media donation is an emerging sustainable business model. Donation in the context of social media can often bring benefits to content creators and social media platforms, as well as realizing their sustainable development. Based on attachment theory, customer loyalty theory, and interaction ritual chains theory, this paper studies how feedback interaction and participatory interaction affect users’ continued intent to donate. The role of users’ emotion and price consciousness are mainly considered. Data were collected through questionnaires, and the sample covered 466 WeChat users. Structural equation modeling and linear regression were used to test the hypothesis. It was found that emotional attachment and emotional loyalty had significant positive effects on users’ continued intent to donate, and participatory interaction had significant positive effects on emotional attachment and emotional loyalty, while feedback interaction had a significant positive effect on emotional attachment. Price consciousness did not directly affect continued intent to donate, but as a moderator, it weakened the positive relationship between emotional attachment and continued intent to donate. Full article

As the rate of affiliation to Christian identity continues to decline in Aotearoa New Zealand (only 49 percent of the population said they were Christian in the last census), public space has become more receptive to other forms of religiosity. In particular, community rituals around the winter movements of the Matariki (Pleiades) constellation have gained support since the year 2000. For instance, the capital city, Wellington, has replaced a centuries’ old British fireworks festival, Guy Fawkes, with an enlarged version of its Matariki celebrations: an action seen as a tipping point in the incorporation of Māori spiritual values into public life. Interactions between European colonisers and Māori have been characterised for more than 250 years by tensions between the relational thinking of Māori who see human beings as both participating in and constrained by an environment resonant with divine energies, and the quantitative, hierarchical, ‘Great Chain of Being’ model that had long been dominant among Europeans. Now, when the natural environment worldwide is under strain from population and economic pressures, it seems to some both appropriate and vital to look to epistemological and spiritual models that are intimately responsive to the specificities of location. Full article

Randall Collins’ theory of interaction ritual chains is widely cited, but has been subject to little theoretical elaboration. One reason for the modest expansion of the theory is the underdevelopment of the concept of emotional energy. This paper examines emotional energy, related particularly to the dynamics of negative experiences. It asks whether or not negative emotions produce emotional energies that are qualitatively distinct from their positive counterparts. The analysis begins by tracing the development of Interaction Ritual Theory, and summarizes its core propositions. Next, it moves to a conceptualization of a “valenced” emotional energy and describes both “positive” and “negative” dimensions. Six propositions outline the central dynamics of negative emotional energy. The role of groups in the formation of positive and negative emotional energy are considered, as well as how these energies are significant sources of sociological motivation. Full article