The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure
by Victor Turner, Alfred Harris (Foreword by), Roger D. Abrahams (Foreword by)
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.
The Ritual Process has acquired the status of a small classic since these lectures were first published in 1969. Turner demonstrates how the analysis of ritual behavior and symbolism may be used as a key to understanding social structure and processes. He extends Van Gennep’s notion of the “liminal phase” of rites of passage to a more general level, and applies it to gain understanding of a wide range of social phenomena. Once thought to be the “vestigial” organs of social conservatism, rituals are now seen as arenas in which social change may emerge and be absorbed into social practice.
As Roger Abrahams writes in his foreword to the revised edition: “Turner argued from specific field data. His special eloquence resided in his ability to lay open a sub-Saharan African system of belief and practice in terms that took the reader beyond the exotic features of the group among whom he carried out his fieldwork, translating his experience into the terms of contemporary Western perceptions. Reflecting Turner’s range of intellectual interests, the book emerged as exceptional and eccentric in many ways: yet it achieved its place within the intellectual world because it so successfully synthesized continental theory with the practices of ethnographic reports.”
(Goodreads.com)
Pretty interesting looking. I like the idea that “rituals are now seen as arenas in which social change may emerge and be absorbed into social practice.” I’m thinking of the example of an L, G or T person getting elected to an office by virtue of the ritual of voting.
One cautionary note: the blurb states that the book “successfully synthesized continental theory with the practices of ethnographic reports.” If ‘continental theory’ is the Continental branch of philosophy, then the reader may be in for a brain numbing dose of existential phenomenology. There are plenty of really stimulating ideas in existentialism an d in phenomenology, but when they are both considered together, as in Sartre, words start to take on whole new powers.