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Abstract
In this paper we present an analysis of a social practice that was observed during a two-month ethnographic field study in a school in the Afrikaans community of Orania. It is a flag ceremony that is carried out at the end of each week. We use two different framework positions from which to discuss the ceremony – Turner's (2009) interpretive framework with which to analyse social action as ritual and Reckwitz's (2003) ‘theories of practice’ approach to see how it could be understood as forming part of everyday life. From the view of the former, rituals are associated mostly with power relations and initiation, and have rigid time and content structures. From the viewpoint of the latter, a type of ‘praxeological’ approach, the observed ceremony could be interpreted as an integral part of everyday school life that is embedded and is an embodied routine, without rational, reflective practice. The aim of this article is to juxtapose and discuss these two alternative approaches as they apply to the observed ceremony. For this we turn to the work of Erving Goffman, who combines ritual theory with an everyday routine focus. The conclusions point to the need to examine the underlying logic of practices instead of only describing their evolving dynamics.
