While researchers often try to answer the question of ritual participation from an outside (etic) point of view, the inside (emic) perspective is no less important. Dimitris Xygalatas together with Peter Maňo investigated the local understanding of various rituals performed by Mauritian Hindus.
Though the results lend support to an old anthropological observation that rituals are performed because "it has always been done that way", it seems that more demanding rituals trigger a wider spectrum of emic explanations. These explanations often relate to pressing and specific concerns and needs of performers.
You can find the paper here:
Martin Lang received the Czech National Foundation’s Junior Star grant with his project titled Computing Religious Devotion: How Reinforcing Supernatural Beliefs Affects Normative Models in the Mind.
The vice-rector for Research and Doctoral Studies at Masaryk University has awarded two LEVYNA graduates - Dan Řezníček and Radim Chvaja with a price for excellent results during their Ph.D. studies.
