Polar Expeditions: Discovering Rituals of Success Within Hazardous Ventures

Polar Expeditions employs structural ritualization theory to show how rituals enriched the lives of crewmembers on 19 polar expeditions over a 100-year period. J. David Knottnerus identifies and compares failed, successful, and extremely successful missions in terms of participation in ritual practices and the social psychological health of crews, finding that that social and personal rituals, such as work practices, religious activities, games, birthday parties, special dinners, or taking walks are extremely important in increasing crewmembers' ability to cope with the challenges they face including extreme dangers, isolation, restricted environment, stress, lengthy journeys, and quite importantly the disruption of those practices that define our everyday lives. Besides contributing to our knowledge about polar expeditions, this research yields implications for our understanding of ritual dynamics in other situations such as disasters, refugee camps, nursing homes, traumatic experiences, and a new type of hazardous venture, space exploration.

J. David Knottnerus is Emeritus Regents Professor of Sociology at Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma. He has published extensively in the areas of ritual dynamics, social theory, social psychology, group processes, social structure, and social inequality. Much of his work in recent years has focused on the development of structural ritualization theory and research, which analyzes the role rituals play in social life.