Ritual and its Theatrical Presentations in Iranian Religious Lifestyle: An Anthropological Approach

Anthropology of Performance provides many possibilities to study the daily life and its rituals a representation. After the revolution in Iran, religious lifestyle became more important. This research excavates religious lifestyle in Iran, especially in the daily life, with its representative aspects within the framework of the cultural anthropology, mostly focused on the deep influences of performance and representation in religious lifestyle on individuals and society. This research seeks for the possibility of a performative reading of religious lifestyle and the aspects of performance anthropology involved through using Victor Turner’s anthropological approach and Erving Goffman’s theoretical framework. To answer the question, the daily level of believers’ life is studied within Goffman’s arguments and the ritual level within Turner’s, then the role of ritual aspects in the daily life. Also body as the most important part of performance and its role in time and place is one of the most considerable issues studied in this research. The findings show that major social and political influences are made through the Iranian religious rituals witch can be explained by Goffman’s ideas about presentation of self in the daily life as well as Turner’s thoughts on liminal situations and the change of individual at the end of this process. The boundaries of this influence are expanded so far that seeks to transform the whole society into an apect of the Sacred. This is, of course, challenged by issues directly related to the limitations of body. This article is an interdisciplinary research between principles of the Performance Theory and theatrical rituals and theories of anthropology and sociology to get a solution for issues discussed in this research.