There's a moment in every ritual where words fail. The priest raises the bread. The mourners lower the casket. The couple exchanges rings. You could describe what's happening, but the description would miss something essential. The meaning isn't in the descriptionâit's in the doing.
Boris Wiseman's work on meaning and embodiment in ritual practice helps us understand why. His central argument is that ritual meaning is not primarily cognitive. It's not a set of beliefs or propositions that participants hold in their heads. Instead, meaning is produced through bodily engagementâthrough the sensory experience of participating in the ritual itself.
For the DEVICES framework, this is a critical insight. We tend to think of devices as tools that we use consciously, for purposes we understand. But the most powerful devices work on us at the level of the body. They shape our posture, our gestures, our sensory habits. And in doing so, they create meaning that operates below the threshold of conscious awareness. The smartphone in your pocket isn't just a communication deviceâit's a ritual object that has reshaped your embodied relationship to the world.
Learning Objectives
- Understand how meaning emerges from bodily engagement rather than abstract cognition
- Learn how sensory experience shapes the transmission of cultural knowledge
- Connect embodied meaning-making to the DEVICES framework
Key Concepts
Embodied Meaning
Wiseman argues that meaning in ritual is not primarily cognitiveâit doesn't live in the head as a set of propositions or beliefs. Instead, meaning is produced through the body. When you kneel in prayer, the kneeling itself carries meaning. When you share a meal at a funeral, the eating together creates significance that no verbal explanation could fully capture.
This matters for the DEVICES framework because it reveals how devices work on us below the level of conscious thought. A device doesn't need to convince you of anything. It just needs to get you to perform certain actions repeatedly. The meaning follows the practice, not the other way around.
Sensory Transmission
Ritual knowledge is transmitted through the sensesâthrough what we see, hear, smell, taste, and touch. This is why rituals are so often multi-sensory experiences: incense and candles in religious services, the specific foods of holiday meals, the music at weddings and funerals.
For devices, this insight is powerful. The most effective devices engage multiple senses. Think about the haptic feedback of your phone, the specific sounds of notifications, the visual design of interfaces. These aren't just aesthetic choicesâthey're mechanisms for embedding the device into your embodied experience.
The Body as Archive
Wiseman draws on the idea that the body itself is an archive of cultural knowledge. The way you walk, sit, gesture, eatâall of these carry the accumulated practices of your culture. You didn't learn them consciously; you absorbed them through repeated participation in social life.
This is the deepest level at which devices operate. They don't just change what you doâthey change how your body moves through the world. The "smartphone posture," the "typing hands," the "screen face"âthese are not metaphors. They are real changes to your embodied being, and they carry meaning whether you're aware of it or not.
Assignment
Read Wiseman's chapter on meaning and embodiment in ritual. Pay attention to his examples of how bodily practice creates meaning. As you read, consider: What devices have shaped your own embodied habits? How do those habits carry meaning that you might not be consciously aware of?
Read: Meaning and Embodiment in Ritual Practice (ResearchGate) Knowledge Check
Reflect on the key topics in this lesson.
1
What does Wiseman mean by "embodied meaning"?
Hint: Think about how meaning is created through bodily practice rather than abstract thought.
2
How does sensory experience contribute to the transmission of cultural knowledge?
Hint: Consider the role of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch in ritual.
3
What does it mean to say that the body is an "archive" of cultural knowledge?
Hint: Think about how your posture, gestures, and movements carry cultural information.
Additional Resources
Supplementary materials for deeper exploration.
How Societies Remember
A foundational text on how memory is inscribed in bodily practices.
The Anthropology of the Body
A collection exploring embodiment across cultures.