Tradition

Abstract

Tradition can be described through objects and ritual activities informally shaped and established through time and space and experienced through customs, which is defined by Eric Hobsbawm as “the sanction of precedent, social continuity and natural law as expressed in history” (Hobsbawm, 1992, p. 1). Customs, in that sense, signify the routine intricacies of everyday practice, identified in patterned behaviors and repetitive cultural activities that were developed through people’s effort to structure societies, establish a collective understanding of phenomena, and most importantly fulfill their survival needs as members of communities. However, the common belief that tradition can be traced in all communities around the world and be acknowledged as an authentic manifestation of cultural uniqueness does not expose its multilayered character and its entanglement with their cultural, political, and psychosocial attributes. In this context, it is crucial to explore the interpretation of tradition as portrayed by concepts such as invented, little, and great, and modern and premodern tradition. Hobsbawm defined invented tradition as the change of tradition’s context from informal to a formally established framework that deliberately strengthens “overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behavior by repetition” (Ibid.). Despite the clarity of this distinction, in real life invented tradition can be too difficult to trace especially in communities without forms of documentation such as written records or enduring material structures.