Ritual Rules in Changing Circumstances: Break, Adapt or Maintain? An Introduction

This issue gathers some of the works presented by the members of the Ritual Year Working Group during the 15th Congress of the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore (SIEF) in Helsinki in June 2021. As the general theme of this congress was “Breaking the Rules? Power, Participation, Transgression”, most of the articles stick to this question and try to understand the relationship between rituals and (the breaking of) social rules. The authors address the major problem from several perspectives: the regulations for performing traditional rituals and the reasons for violating them; ritual behaviour on certain dates when the social norms, the hierarchies, and the gender roles are turned upside down; modification of the ritual year recommendations according to the new environment in emigration; etc. Transgression is seen as breaking the traditional foundations and also as a transition from real performance to virtual participation. And, as in June 2021 the entire world was subjected to the rules of COVID-19, some articles in particular attempt to address the pandemic’s impact on ritual sociability worldwide.