Sustaining the Ivory Tower: Oxbridge Formal Dining as Organizational Ritual

Abstract

In this ethnographic study of formal hall ritual in Oxbridge Colleges, the authors show how this special form of dining plays a key role in organizational cohesion, demarcation and continuity. Formal hall serves as a central organizing principle of the colleges, having social, political and pedagogic facets. Drawing upon participant observation of 22 formal dinners, this article explores its significance on different levels. It examines how formal hall creates social stability, provides historical continuity, reaffirms hierarchy and bureaucratic order, perpetuates exclusivity and reverence, and provides college level space for organizational politicking, relationship-building and information exchange. It also cements important stakeholder relations at broader societal levels. Furthermore, these outcomes feed into its overriding purpose of solidifying shared elite identity through selective membership and participation. Transgressions against this elitist formal dining ritual are also addressed, being conceptualized on a continuum from "higher order" to "lower order" according to degree of potential threat to the ritual. The authors conclude with a discussion of their findings" implications for research on organizational ritual, whereby inclusion, exclusion and identity issues lie at the heart of the ritual"s power over organizational processes, and the social control of actors not solely within but also beyond immediate organizational boundaries. Beefsteak from an ox roasted whole in the great fireplace of the College Hall … For two hours the members of Porterhouse were lost to the world, immersed in an ancient ritual that spanned the centuries" (Tom Sharpe "Porterhouse Blue" pp.1-2).In this satirical account of communal formal dining at an imaginary Oxbridge 1 college, Tom Sharpe vividly depicts a scene of ritual feasting still regularly enacted.In this article, we explore this event and its role in organizational processes. Our overarching aim is to examine dining rituals and ceremonies within organizations, and between organizations and wider society. We use insights from sociological and organizational literature on ritual, food and eating, to examine the routine college dining event of 'formal hall' 2 as an example of organizational ritual. Influenced mainly by the agonistic thesis of ritual, our analysis centers upon formal hall"s role in maintaining key college organizational mechanisms. Drawing upon an ethnographic study, we explain the evolution and conventions, as well as corresponding effects and transgressions, in its staging.Our key contribution is to demonstrate the importance of formal dining as a symbolic medium reaffirming social structure, order and interaction. Formal hall ritual plays a central and complex role in Oxbridge"s organizational fabric. Evidence from our study extends existing research by exploring the event"s significance on two levels.Firstly, within the organization it increases social cohesion, provides historical continuity, reaffirms hierarchies, perpetuates exclusivity, and ...

Citizen Participation as Political Ritual: Towards a Sociological Theorizing of ‘Health Citizenship’

“…More worryingly, the state’s (in our case represented by the NIHR) superficial endorsement of participating citizens’ emotional experiences (manifest for instance in policy discourse emphasizing the utilization of ‘patient experience’ when re-designing care services (Department of Health, 2008)), could be criticized for manipulating participants by removing their need for more radical involvement that may take the form of confrontational activism – such as street protests. Such more radical forms of citizen participation correspond to what Di Domenico and Phillips (2009: 339) discuss as ritual transgressions of ‘higher’ order, which do not merely disrupt existing ritual elements, but ‘involve more forceful and explicit strategies of resistance’ that cannot be ‘easily neutralized’: these can include for instance ‘ nonparticipation ’ (2009: 336, emphasis added).…”

“…Some of this research (e.g. Di Domenico and Phillips, 2009) shows the nuances and dynamics of the ritualization process, for instance unpicking the role of ‘transgressions’ (actions that express resistance to a ritual norm) in maintaining (rather than fundamentally challenging) a ritual’s dominance. This work shows how transgressions can themselves become ritualized and how the boundaries of ritual structures might remain fluid enough to endorse and neutralize any threats.…”

“…This containment became possible in the 'material conditioning' achieved through meeting rituals, the 'mundane technologies' (time and agenda control, the use of specialist language), on which participants relied to made sense of the organization and their role within it (Abram 2014). Such 'transgressions' hence remained unthreatening to the overall process (Di Domenico and Phillips, 2009), since when carefully managed they did not challenge the priorities contained in the PPI 'scripts' invoked during meetings.…”

Rituals and Institutional Maintenance: The Case of the Beating Retreat Ceremony

“…The performative dimension or the enactment of highly symbolic actions in public makes ritual akin to theater (Bell, 1997). Defined as “overlapping ceremony and rite” (Di Domenico & Phillips, 2009, p. 327) and as “social dramas” (Rosen, 1985), rituals involve distinctive stylized activities and symbols to influence social organization and cognitive categories that provide people a sense of reality within institutions (Bell, 1997). As symbolic regularities, rituals allow for an understanding of means through which institutional belief systems and associated social order is exemplified and reinforced (Dacin et al, 2010; Di Domenico & Phillips, 2009; Islam, 2015; Smith & Stewart, 2011; Thomson & Hassenkamp, 2008).…”

“…Research has examined ritual-driven institutional maintenance where participation was mandated (Rosen, 1985, 1988); participant conformity to the recurring ritual enactment seemed obligatory (Dacin et al, 2010; Di Domenico & Phillips, 2009), especially where active participation in rehearsals in the lead up to the final ritual performance was critical for the ritual to materialize (Kong & Yeoh, 1997). In each case, institutional maintenance rested on the dialectic between social order and disorder within a defined community.…”