Useful(filling) Durkheim: Reconfiguring the Sociological Prospect of Space Syntax

ABSTRACT: Randall Collins’ theory of the interaction ritual is one of the most important contributions within recent Durkheiman scholarship. The paper addresses the ‘micro-morphological’ perspective that Collins explicitly applies, but which, however, remains overlooked in the extensive literature on the interaction ritual theory. Yet the paper argues that this micro-morphological approach is one of the theoretical keys to understand Collins’ original contribution and reassessment of Durkheim’s sociology of religion. Crucially, Collins’ micro-sociological linkage between social rituality and morphology counters the predominant reception of Durkheim that insists on the incompatibleness of the socio-morphological ‘materialism’ of the early Durkheim and the ‘idealist’ approach to religious life which, allegedly, characterizes the late Durkheim. According to Collins, the interaction ritual is fundamentally a micro-morphological phenomenon. Despite the originality of this neo-Durkheimian argument, Collins’ micro-morphological contribution appears, however, too theoretically narrow. This applies specifically to the question of the spatial forces of the ritual micro-morphology of which importance Collins seems to underestimate. Accordingly, the paper suggests a spatial corrective to Collins’ neo-Durkheimian model, which especially draws on the contemporary spatial morphological approach of ‘space syntax’: what Collins describes as the ‘market’ for interaction rituals is reassessed as subject to a ‘movement economy’ of the spatial configuration. Following this spatial morphological suggestion, the paper applies space syntax methodology and multiple regression statistics to test the validity of this spatially reassessed model of the interaction ritual. Empirically, the paper draws on quantitative microdata of situational encounters at the Roskilde festival, which is the largest music festival in northern Europe. The statistical test suggests that the spatial configuration both holds a movement economical potential to constrain and intensify the micro-morphological dynamics of the interaction ritual market. Randall Collins’ theory of the interaction ritual is one of the most important contributions within recent Durkheiman scholarship. The article addresses the ‘micro-morphological’ perspective that Collins explicitly applies, but which, however, remains overlooked in the otherwise extensive literature on the interaction ritual theory. Yet the article argues that this micro-morphological approach is a theoretical key to understand Collins’ theoretical contribution and original reassessment of Durkheim’s sociology of religion. Thus, Collins’ micro-sociological linkage between rituality and morphology counters the predominant reception of Durkheim which insists on the incompatibleness of the socio-morphological materialism and idealist interpretation of religious life, which allegedly and respectively characterizes the early and late Durkheim: the interaction ritual is a micro-morphological phenomenon. Despite the originality of this neo-Durkheimian argument, Collins’ micro-morphological contribution appears, however, also theoretically confined. Specifically, this applies to the question of the spatial forces of the ritual micro-morphology of which im-portance Collins’ seems to underestimate. Hence, the article suggests a spatial corrective to Collins’ contribution, which especially draws on the contemporary spatial morphological approach of space syntax: what Collins describes as the ‘market’ for interaction rituals is interpreted as subject to the ‘movement economy’ of the spatial configuration. Following this spatial morphological suggestion, the article applies space syntax methodology and multiple regression statistics to test the validity of this spatially reassessed model of the interaction ritual. Empirically, the article draws on quantitative microdata on situational encounters at the Roskilde festival 2011. The statistical test suggests that the spatial configuration both holds movement economical potential to constrain and intensify the appraised dynamics of the interaction ritual market.