ABSTRACT
Kinship ritual in China is a case in point, or networking a la guanxi. The ritual economy is the market economy created, enacted, and maintained by rituals and ritual frames of action. Then, ritual may emerge as the ideal-typical counterpart to the form of rationality in capitalism that emerged in the West. Ritual becomes an important medium of the emerging Shenzhen identity, beyond the modernist credo. The theory of ritual is an excellent example for this two-level methodology. There are various approaches that allow for building a general theory of ritual, such as Collins’. But they can only become empirically meaningful if they relate systematically with forms of ritual that are specific to certain societies. For Weber, ritual is atavistic magic, whereas for Durkheim ritual generates emotional forces grounding emphatic and solidary social relations in communities.
