Revitalization movement

In 1956, Anthony F. C. Wallace published a paper called "Revitalization Movements" to describe how cultures change themselves. A revitalization movement is a "deliberate, organized, conscious effort by members of a society to construct a more satisfying culture" (p. 265), and Wallace describes at length the processes by which a revitalization movement takes place.

Wallace derived his theory from studies of so-called primitive peoples (preliterate and homogeneous), with particular attention to the Iroquois revitalization movement led by Seneca religious leader and prophet Handsome Lake (1735-1815). Wallace believed that his revitalization model applies to movements as broad and complex as the rise of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, or Wesleyan Methodism.

Scholars such as Vittorio Lanternari (1963) and Peter Worsley (1968) have developed and apapted Wallace's insights.

See also

• Ghost Dance: a famous Native American revitalization movement
• Great Awakenings: a controversially named reference to revitalization movements in the USA.
• Revivalism

References

• Kehoe, B Alice, The Ghost Dance: Ethnohistory and Revitalization, Massacre at Wounded Knee Creek, Thompson Publishing, 1989.

• Vittorio Lanternari. The Religions of the Oppressed; a Study of Modern Messianic Cults. (London: MacGibbon & Kee, [Studies in Society], 1963; New York: Knopf, 1963).

• Peter Worsley. The Trumpet Shall Sound; a Study of "Cargo" Cults in Melanesia. New York,: Schocken Books, 2d augmented, 1968).