Anthropologist
Victor Turner made a huge contribution to anthropology by reintroducing the
concept of "liminality" into the anthropological discourse. Turner was
concerned with understanding cultures on the basis of dynamism and disorder,
seeing society not as a "thing" but rather as a dynamic and dialectic
process. Tuner conceptualized culture as a constant struggle between structure
and anti-structure.
Turner's
work on liminalty draws from Van-Gennep's triadic model of the Rite of Passage,
which he elaborates to include other cultural phenomena. Van Gennep described
the process of shifting from one social status to another in three stages:
1.disengaement in which the individual is symbolically removed from society and
his own identity. 2. The luminal stage in which the individual is secluded from
society and is under constant supervision. 3. The reunion or post-liminal stage
in which the individual is reintegrated into society with his new statues.
Turner
took an interest is the second phase of Van Gennep's model – that of
liminality. Liminalty, in terms of social structure and time, is an intermediate
state of being "in between" in which individuals are striped from their
usual identity and their constituting social differences while being on the
verge of personal or social transformation. Turner's perception of liminality,
it should be noted, is in many respects an addition or correction to Mary
Douglas' somewhat dichotomic and static description "ritual
uncleaness".
According
to turner, liminality brings about a state he calls "communitas". Communitas
according to Turner is a relatively structureless society which is based on
relations of equality and solidarity and which is opposed to the normative social
structure. Communitas gains it meaning through the deconstruction of this
normative order. The communitas is according to Turner the ultimate vision of a
culture. However, liminality and communitas are usually temporary and
structurally defined and limited, thus dialectically serve to reaffirm the
existing social order.
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