In 1956, Anthony F. C. Wallace published a paper called "Revitalization Movements" Wallace, Anthony F.C. 1956. "Revitalization Movements", American Anthropologist 58: 264-281. 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.
Overview Wallace's model 1956 describes the process of a revitalization movement. It is derived from studies of a Native American religious movement, The Code of Handsome Lake, which may have led to the formation of the Longhouse Religion.
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.
Revitalization is a part of social movements.
Scholars such as Vittorio Lanternari (1963), Peter Worsley (1968) and Duane Champagne (1988, 2005) have developed and adapted 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. Christian revivalism Language revitalization
Notes
References Champagne, Duane (1988). "The Delaware Revitalization Movement of the Early 1760s: A Suggested Reinterpretation." American Indian Quarterly 12 (2): 107–126.
Kehoe, B. Alice, The Ghost Dance: Ethnohistory and Revitalization, Massacre at Wounded Knee Creek, Thompson Publishing, 1989. Lanternari, Vittorio. The Religions of the Oppressed; a Study of Modern Messianic Cults. (London: MacGibbon & Kee, [Studies in Society], 1963; New York: Knopf, 1963). Lindstrom, Lamont. Cargo Cult: Strange Stories of Desire from Melanesia and Beynd. (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. 1993). Worsley, Peter. The Trumpet Shall Sound: A study of 'cargo' cults in Melanesia. (New York: Schocken Books, 2d augmented, 1968).