He expressed this well in another definition: Ritual is “
a stereotyped sequence of activities involving gestures, words, and objects, performed in a sequestered place, and designed to influence preternatural entities or forces on behalf of the actors’ goals and interests
” (Turner 1977a:183).
What did Victor Turner believe?
Similarly to Emile Durkheim, Turner believed
that social order depended on rituals and ceremonial performances
. He saw culture as being in a constant state of change as members of the culture negotiated common beliefs. During his early career, Turner studied the Ndembu tribe in central Africa.
What is Victor Turner ritual analysis?
In The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, Victor Turner
examines rituals of the Ndembu in Zambia
and develops his now-famous concept of “Communitas.” He characterizes it as an absolute inter-human relation beyond any form of structure.
What did Victor Turner argue?
Victor Witter Turner (28 May 1920 – 18 December 1983) was a British cultural anthropologist best known for his work on
symbols, rituals, and rites of passage
. His work, along with that of Clifford Geertz and others, is often referred to as symbolic and interpretive anthropology.
What was Victor Turner known for?
Victor W. Turner (b. 1920–d. 1983) was
a symbolic anthropologist whose comparative investigations of ritual and cultural performance left a unique impression in
the social and human sciences, and across the arts.
What are the three rites of passage?
At their most basic, all rites of passage are characterized by three distinct phases:
separation (leaving the familiar), transition (a time of testing, learning and growth), and return (incorporation and reintegration)
.
What is a liminal period?
The liminal stage is the middle stage,
the in-between period during which a person has not yet fully reached their new status in whatever rite of passage they are going through
. (For example, being “the new kid” for a while when attending a new school, before being fully incorporated into a new group of friends.)
What are the three liminal stages according to Victor Turner?
Van Gennep said that liminal rituals known as “rites of passage” occurred in three stages: 1) separation (from ordinary social life); (2) margin or limen (meaning threshold), when the subjects of ritual fall into a limbo between their past and present modes of daily existence;
and (3) re-aggregation, when they are
…
Why does Turner argue that the liminal stage is so important?
Building upon van Gennep’s observation that rites of passage and other rituals are liminal in that they temporarily extricate participants from their social statuses, Turner argued that
rites of passage are antithetical to existing social structure and “subjunctive” because they invite new possibilities
.
What is a cyclic ritual?
A life cycle ritual is
a ceremony to mark a change in a person’s biological or social status at various phases throughout life
. … although can be described as more specifically to do with major biological life events such as birth, adolescence, marriage and death.
How does Victor Turner define Communitas?
Turner’s concept, denoting
intense feelings of social togetherness and belonging, often in connection with rituals
. … “Communitas as a social form alternates with “normal” social structure, and is, according to Victor Turner’s theories, not limited to the liminal phase in rites de passage.
What is the meaning of Communitas?
Communitas is a Latin noun commonly referring either to
an unstructured community in which people are equal, or to the very spirit of community
. It also has special significance as a loanword in cultural anthropology and the social sciences.
Who influenced Victor Turner?
8. “Turner’s commitment to political analysis was deeply influenced by
the political life of the American 1960s
, and it was during this decade that he wrote several explicitly political analyses,” observe Babcock and Macaloon (11). For the Turners’ life at Cornell, see Edith Turner, “From the Ndembu to Broadway.”
What are the four fields of anthropology?
- Archaeology. Archaeologists study human culture by analyzing the objects people have made. …
- Biological Anthropology. …
- Cultural Anthropology. …
- Linguistic Anthropology.
How do medical anthropologists distinguish between disease and illness?
The often quoted distinction by Kleinman (1980) echoes the aforementioned definition of illness as
dependent on disease
: Disease refers to a malfunctioning of biological and/or psychological processes, while the term illness refers to the psychological experience and meaning of perceived disease.
What is a liminal experience?
So back to the original question – what is a liminal experience? Liminality is an
anthropological term used to describe the transitional phase experienced by a person during a rite of passage
; a process of leaving behind an old identity, and becoming something new (Turner, 1967, Turner, 1995).
