Negotiating Ritual Participation: Experiencing Ritual Gifts as an Outsider

Abstract

This paper examines how people become participants in a ritual that has historically been dominated by people outside their group. We first demonstrate how participatory golf is a ritual, that there is apprehension when entering this ritual, and that there are differences in how people respond to rituals based upon experience. Ritual negotiation and apprehension is especially prevalent among female beginners, who are less privy to golf's rituals. The level of perceived sacredness influences the relationships found in this study. Qualitative data indicates that women use three different modes for ritual participation: be subservient to them, challenge them, or ignore them.