Sounds of Children in Worship: Materiality and Liturgical-Ritual Spaces

Bringing together concepts from the fields of material religion
and liturgical studies, this article explores how adults and
children manage sound-related affordances during worship. The
concept of affordances—the possibilities an environment offers
a person—is made sensitive to socialization and is related to the
concept of liturgical-ritual space. Liturgical-ritual space comes
into being through people’s participation in an environment and
is therefore defined as a type of lived-in space. The analysis of
children’s acoustic participation in two pre-Reformation church
buildings shows how sounds made by children contribute to the
creation of a liturgical-ritual space. It also brings to light tensions
in how adults experience and interpret the sounds that children
make. Attention to sound highlights the relationship between
people and the material environment and shows that sound
matters in Protestant worship with children, not only for the
cognitive messages it may convey but for its affective qualities
as well.