Rites of the Soil: Exploring the Ritualized Work of a Nonprofit Community Garden

Abstract

The field of ritual studies has often been relegated to the disciplines of religious studies and anthropology, and typically understood within a religious context. However, this dissertation applies the study of ritual to a nonprofit organization as a distinct organizational culture that engages in mission driven work that, at times, can also function as a series of deeply meaningful rituals; within ritual studies, this process of practical work taking on enhanced meaning is known as ritualization. Utilizing Ronald Grimes' categories of ritual sensibilities (specifically decorum, magic, ceremony, liturgy, and celebration), this research sought to better understand how the work of The Lord's Acre, a nonprofit community garden dedicated to addressing the conditions of food insecurity, can similarly be viewed as ritualized activities. The study was conducted through the use of intensive participant observation and interviews conducted between 2018-2020 on site in Fairview, North Carolina. The research uncovered several important revelations. First, the work of the garden often hinged upon the use of ritual language, spaces, and objects, and some of the rituals defied the clear categorization under Grimes' schema. Instead, ritual attitudes toward the work under observation became blends of multiple categories, such as celebratory ceremonies, thus helping to reify Grimes' theory. Secondly, at times, the rituals undertaken at the organization resembled rites of passage popularized by Arnold van Gennep and also sustained periods of liminality, or communitas, popularized by Victor Turner, especially in the organization's attempts to build community through educating others about food insecurity. Finally, the research discovered that the practice of liturgy, conventionally thought to reside within religious nonprofit organizations, was active within the organization and thus may also be alive and well within secular nonprofit organizations.