The Ritual Process( Structure and Anti-Structure)[RITUAL PROCESS REV/E][Paperback]

by VictorWitterTurner

The Ritual Process( Structure and Anti-Structure) <> Paperback <> VictorWitterTurner <> Aldine

Genres: Anthropology, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Religion, Sociology, Theory, History

Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

Reviews

[John Carter McKnight · Rating 4 out of 5]

I cannot believe I got through writing a dissertation on techno-utopianism and social change without being made to read this, or at least Chapters 3 and 4, on the dialectic between social structure and "communitas," or ritual or idealized social leveling, and the "liminal," or transitional, as a social relief valve.

On the downside, for me at least, the first two chapters are fairly standard ethnographic case studies of African tribes, and probably not particularly interesting to anyone not studying tribal rituals. I found the case studies after the book's theoretical core, on the rise of social structure in initially radically utopian religious communities more interesting, but either way, the case study material can be skipped, and the theoretical core taken on its own.

Writing in 1969, Turner frequently analogizes to the beatnik and hippie movements: it's interesting to see echoes of his arguments in the slackers and hipsters of later generations, and a fascinating contrast in techno-utopianism, which reads as a fusion of his liminalities of the elite and those of the underclass - or, privileged white guys claiming status as a persecuted "geek" minority class.

Turner is one of the few modern theorists willing to look at large-scale, generalizable social forces, daring to look beyond the particular to the grander sweep of history. Nearly 50 years on, his work is as fresh and valuable as ever.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of Turner's earlier works. It is a collection of lectures and therefore less dense than other works. It is primarily a development of van Gennep's theory of liminality in rites of passage. Turner's big contribution is the idea that those who are in the process of a rite of passage and are therefore separated from the social structure and not yet integrated back into the social structure themselves constitute a community.

[Feliks · Rating 3 out of 5]

Challenging topic at which the author does a pretty good job. He's enthusiastic and speaks from wonderful field-experience. Surveys the work of other cultural anthropologists in passing. I picked up a few ideas; but overall not as much as I hoped. It is just a bit too jargon-filled and a bit too rife with footnotes to derive anything but a vague sense of the real contribution this work makes to the field of ethnological studies. Choppy going; (it didn't help that my copy was heavily highlighted by a previous reader). Overall, I am glad I gave it a try and it may lead me to other works of the same stripe...

[Esteban · Rating 3 out of 5]

En sus orígenes el concepto antropológico de liminalidad estuvo orientado a una fase concreta del ritual, en particular a que marca la transición de un estado a otro. Turner recupera ese acepción de van Gennep con dos propósitos: ampliarla más allá de los usos etnológicos, y profundizar en algunos aspectos, especialmente en lo que Turner llama communitas. Este communitas es una especie de modo inidiferenciado de socialización, que más allá de ser evidente en las fases liminales de ritos colectivos está presente en muchos aspectos de la vida en común como una sombra proyectada por la estructura social. Communitas vendría a ser una especie de antiestructura que iguala a sus miembros mediante la indiferenciación.

Dos de las observaciones más interesantes son 1. como algunas religiones parecen aspirar a un estado de liminalidad permanente, y 2. como las religiones generalmente se orientan en una de dos direcciones al suscitar ese estado de umbral:

"some religions resemble the liminality of status elevation: They emphasize humility, patience, and the unimportance of distinctions of status, property, age, sex, and other natural and cultural differentiae. Furthermore, they stress mystical union, numinosity, and undifferentiated communitas. (...) Other religious movements, on the contrary, exhibit many of the attributes of tribal and peasant rituals of status reversal. "

Hay varias referencias directas a los hippies, que vienen a actuar como un contrapeso por entonces contemporáneo al resto de la casuística de Turner: la orden franciscana, los husitas, la Oneida Community, el movimiento bhakti del norte de India, etc. Sería interesante ver por donde ocurren las búsquedas contemporáneas de la liminalidad. Mi impresión es que en comparación a la guerra nuclear que estaba en el imaginario de su época, el cambio climático es muy poco dramático, y la imaginación colectiva está más ocupada por ficciones postapocalípticas donde la catástrofe ya ocurrió, cerrándole el paso a la búsqueda antiestructural de un communitas.

Se nota que Turner presenta sus reflexiones como una contribución etnológica a procesos que buscan la emancipación en la igualdad, pero en ese aspecto veo un problema bastante serio, que es su identificación de la igualdad con la uniformidad, con la indiferenciación del momento liminal.

[Tana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un libro increíble, de los que más me han gustado últimamente. Es ameno y fácil de leer (si bien académico, claro).

Hay muchísimo material aquí, y lejos de centrarse solo en los ritos de crisis de vida o de paso de los Ndembu o desarrollar el concepto de communitas, hilvana todo con buena mano y ha terminado siendo el libro qué más he subrayado, porque hay perlas en casi cada página.
Vine a él por mi interés en los estadios liminares de los ritos de paso y he encontrado muchísimo más, incluyendo aunque no limitado a, asomarme a un modo por completo nuevo de interrelación, la communitas, procesos de inversión de jerarquía, etc. Me ha parecido hábil su manera de sistematizar por un lado los procesos rituales y entender por otro lado la necesidad humana de uno u otro modo de socialización, el roleplaying, las tensiones internas en sociedades virilocales pero de ascendencia matrilineal, la necesidad de la inversión de jerarquía, etc. etc.

Muy recomendable.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an awesome book. The first half was kind of slow, but the second half pulled it all together.

[Funda Guzer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yeniden okunası . Hastane sürecinde okuduğum için konsantre olmakta güçlük çektim . Yeniden okumayı hedefliyorum .

[R.K. Cowles · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars

[Iman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Throughout his career, Turner was fascinated by rituals and the ritual process, In this book he builds on theories he developed in "The Forest of Symbols" as he spent several years studying the Ndembu tribes in Zambia, coming up with an extremely profound and influential accounts on the ritual process. Building on Arnold Van Gennep's theories, Turner defines the ritual process as consisting of three phases: a pre-liminal phase (separation), a liminal phase (transition), and a post-liminal phase (reincorporation). In this book Turner turns his attention to the liminal phase. The first two chapters discuss in beautiful details 2 Ndembu rituals discovering the symbolic significance (both the ideological and the sensory poles)with a focus on the liminal state of the subjects. In third Chapter Turner introduces the concept of "Communitas" as the modality of the social anti-structure, the between and betwixt. the following two chapters discover examples of communitas across history, beyond "pre-literate" societies.

[Margynata]

kita mundur sedikit, turner adalah seorang sarjana berlatar belakang antropologi. paradigma karl marx dan weber sangat kuat mempengaruhi pemikirannya. ini dapat kita lihat dari konsep "liminality", yaitu keberadaan sesuatu di antara dunia materi dan sakral. pandangan ini tentu saja pernah mempengaruhi di antaranya Hubert & Mauss dengan konsep "sacrifier", atau louis dumont dengan "encompassing"-nya, dilanjutkan oleh "system symbol" geertz. terakhir malah karya seperti turner juga diterapkan oleh anna tsing di kalimantan tengah.

luar biasa, membaca buku turner & beberapa yang lainnya, telah membuka wawasan baru bagi saya bahwa tidak benar bahwa teori Karl marx & Weber tidak kontemporer, paradigma ini bekerja sepanjang masa dalam setiap fenomena sosial, karena kita dapat melihat justru akhirnya pendekatan ini dipakai oleh Anthony Giddens dalam paradigma "strukturasi"-nya baru-baru ini...

[Viktoria Chipova · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review: 5/5 ⭐️
The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure – Victor Turner

A seminal work in anthropology and religious studies, The Ritual Process is a masterclass in understanding the deep structures that govern social transformation, identity, and cultural cohesion. Victor Turner expands upon Arnold van Gennep's concept of the "rite of passage" and introduces some of the most influential concepts in 20th-century social theory: liminality and communitas.

Through ethnographic depth and theoretical clarity, Turner shows how rituals don’t merely reflect society — they actively reshape it. His analysis of liminal phases (the in-between states during rites of passage) is not only brilliant but continues to resonate far beyond anthropology: in literature, psychology, philosophy, and even political theory.

What makes this book so enduring is Turner’s ability to weave rigorous scholarship with a profound sense of the sacred. He reveals how societies rely on ritual not just to maintain structure, but also to allow moments of anti-structure — creative chaos, egalitarianism, transformation — to emerge and renew the social order.

In summary:
This is required reading for anyone interested in human culture, transformation, and the sacred. Deeply insightful, conceptually powerful, and intellectually generative. A true classic. 5/5.

[Nevzat · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first part of the book which focuses on the semantics and symbolism of certain African tribes’ rituals was interesting, particularly the fact that they use certain objects in their positive meaning (branch a fruitful tree is used as a symbol of fruitful reproduction) and some objects in their negative (a tree that’s name means “to wander around” is used to avoid the subject to stop wandering around).

The difference of Turner’s approach compared to Levi Strauss’ is something to note here and I think it makes sense to actually talk with the bearers of the culture about the meaning of their rituals instead of interpreting them through a larger mythological context of that culture’s since that culture has no strong mythology.

The second part where he focuses on kominitas in African rituals and tribes and modern examples of this certain social state were comprehensive and original but I felt it needed more focus on what does this social state mean for the general social structure.

[Marcus Gordon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating embellishment of liminal theory, Turner is a pleasure to read, focuses on communitas (sweeping human community) emerging in liminal phases and draws on many historical examples (even hippies!). Very fascinating points made about ritual anti-structures, how states of poverty and lowliness, lend to outsider-ness, the Franciscan monks, for example established a permanent liminal condition by designing a condition of poverty within the order, to reflect Christs poverty. Liminality and its inherent communitas can be located at the birth of all mystical, religious and artistic movements, where prophetic outsiders could connect and speak to the broader human condition because these figures were either born outside, or chose to abandon all structure and order. But, ultimately, all spontaneous communitas in history 'declines and falls into structure and law'.

[Amber Manning · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Indeed, one often finds in human cultures that structural contradictions, asymmetires and anomalies are overlaid by layers of myth, ritual and symbol, which stress the axiomatic value of key structural principles with regard to the very situations where these appear to be most in-operative” (47).

[Anthony Settee · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of my favorite reads of all time.

[Esme · Rating 5 out of 5]

Victor Turner entwickelte in seinem 1969 erschienen Buch "Das Ritual: Struktur und Anti-Struktur" einen neuen Begriff von Gesellschaft: Gesellschaft als einem zyklischen Prozess, in dem sich Struktur und Anti-Struktur (Communitas) abwechseln.
 
Eine besondere Bedeutung für die Organisation des menschlichen Lebens kommen Übergangsrituale zu, die einen Transformationsprozess begleiten. Diese Rituale verlaufen in drei Phasen: Die erste bzw. die letzte Phase trennen vom alten ab bzw. gliedern an den neuen Zustand an. Merkmal der mittleren Phase, die auch liminale oder Schwellenphase genannt wird, ist Ambiguität oder Unbestimmtheit. Diese Ambiguität ist Voraussetzung, um zu einem neuen Zustand zu gelangen und gestattet, die Gesellschaft von außen zu betrachten und in Frage zu stellen. Für Turner sind die Übergangsrituale der Ausgangspunkt zu seinen Konzepten von Liminalität und Communitas.
 
Victor Turner (1920 - 1983) erforschte Rituale bei den Ndemdu in Zentralafrika, wobei er besonderen Wert auf die symbolische Struktur der Rituale legte. Übergangsriten weisen drei Phasen auf, wobei die mittlere Phase die interessanteste ist, in der das rituelle Subjekt aus der Gesellschaft ausgegliedert ist und sich in einem Zwischenraum befindet, die Schwellen- oder liminale Phase. Die Schwellenwesen streifen alle Eigenschaften, die auf die Zeit vor und nach dem Schwellenzustand verweisen, ab, sie sind Übergangswesen ohne Position in der Sozialstruktur. In dieser Phase werden nur Symbole verwendet, die keine Schlüsse auf Rang, Rolle oder Position zulassen.
 
Hier werden zwei Hauptmodelle menschlicher Sozialstruktur deutlich, die Struktur oder Gesellschaft und als Gegensatz die Communitas oder Gemeinschaft. Was in Stammesgesellschaften eine Übergangsform zwischen Seinsformen ist, ist in komplexeren Gesellschaften eine institutionalisierte Daseinsform. Manifestationen dieser Communitas sieht Turner im Kloster- und Bettelmönchsleben der großen Weltreligionen, Geheimbünden und Bruderschaften, der Beatgeneration und den Hippies.
 
Daraus ergibt sich, dass Gesellschaft (societas) ein dialektischer Prozess von einander abwechselnden Struktur- und Communitas-Phasen ist. Es bestehen zwei Modelle von menschlichen Sozialbeziehungen nebeneinander. Struktur ist ein Arrangement von Positionen und Status mit institutionalisierten und dauerhaften Beziehungen; Communitas eine relativ undifferenzierte Gemeinschaft Gleicher, eine Phase, ein Augenblick, kein dauerhafter Zustand.
 
Victor Turners Faszination für die liminale Phase und die Inspiration zu seiner Communitas-Konzeption beruhten auf eigenen Erfahrungen eines Gemeinschaftsgefühles bei einer Zivilgruppe von Bombensuchern während des 2. Weltkrieges. Doch schon sein Leben begann zwischen zwei Polen als Sohn einer Schauspielerin und eines Elektroingenieurs und endete ebenso: Sein Leichnam wurde nach katholischen Riten und den Trauerzeremonien der Ndemdu bestattet.
 
Victor Turners Denken war offen, er liebte den Fluss der Gedanken. Seine Entwürfe sind nicht nur für die Ethnologie von Bedeutung, sondern wurden auch in Geschichts- und Literaturwissenschaft, Linguistik und Semiotik, Performanz- und Theatertheorie und vielen anderen Fachrichtungen aufgegriffen.
 
"Das Ritual" ist nicht nur Pflichtlektüre für Sozialwissenschaftler, sondern wegen seiner Überfülle an Beispielen für das Phänomen der Communitas und Turners begeisterungsfähigen und kreativen Denkens für alle, die sich für das menschlichen Leben an sich und gesellschaftliche Prozesse interessieren, sehr zu empfehlen.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interpretive Frameworks: Symbolic and Interpretive Analysis
The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure by Victor Turner

In The Ritual Process Victor Turner puts forth his concepts of liminality, communitas, structure and anti-structure; further, he demonstrates, through his study of cultural symbols, how individuals give meaning to their world and how this reality can be understood and interpreted through the purpose and function of the ritual process. Highly influenced by A. R. Radcliffe-Brown’s structural-functionalism and Max Gluckman’s theoretical perspectives on the structure of social stability and social change, Turner’s initial anthropological research focused on ritual as a mechanism which allowed for tensions to be mitigated by rebellion, whereby avoiding revolution and at the same time maintaining social order within a particular society. However, during his four years of field work studying the Ndembu in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), Turner came to two realizations; he found that ritual does far more than engineer social relations, and he determined that static structural-functionalist models fail to account for the dynamic relationships between individuals and their interpretations of their social surroundings.

Branching out from the paradigms associated with his mentors and the Manchester School, in The Ritual Process Turner begins by discussing the Ndembu women’s fertility cult ritual (isoma) to illustrate the purpose and function of symbols, explaining that symbols are cognitive classifications that give order within the Ndembu world. Turner then moves on to present the concepts of liminality and communitas (anti-structure). Building on French anthropologist Arnold van Gennep’s idea that within rites de passage there are three separate and successive stages (separation, margin and aggregation), Turner explains that in between stages individuals become liminal entities that experience communitas. According to Turner, “liminal entities are neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and ceremonial.” (Turner 1969:95) In this neophyte (mwadi) state, individuals become passengers that are under the control of ritual elders; they have no kinship position, status, property rank or ties to the group they formerly belong to or to the group they will become a part of at the conclusion of the rite. As liminal personae, individuals are able to achieve intense feelings of social equality and solidarity, simpatico with the supernatural, and are at one with fellow celebrants. Turner discusses liminality and communitas among hippies in modern Western society as well as among the kinship based societies of the Tallensi, Nuer, and Ashanti to further demonstrate the dialectic process between communitas and structure; through these examples he illustrates his interpretive explanatory framework by which social change can be revealed and understood.

[Abner Rosenweig · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the introduction, Roger Abrahams makes a point to express what a warm, jovial, theatrical personality Victor Turner had. I suspect he does this because these traits--in fact, any detectable hint of personality--are largely absent from Turner's writing. This is a dry, academic work, and as a non-anthropologist, much of it didn't pertain to me. I'm simply not concerned with the finer points of Ndembu ritual. Nevertheless, I found much value in parts of the book (namely, chapters 3 through 5).

I got the book to investigate Turner's distinction between structure and anti-structure (or communitas or liminality, as he variously calls it). Building on Van Gennep's Rites of Passage, Turner identifies a universal psychosocial dynamic running through the human personality and human society: a rational, hierarchical, analytical structure, and a holistic, communal, sacred totality. Turner argues that a dialectic between structure and anti-structure is present in all of our lives and all societies, and that an alternating fluctuation through both elements are integral parts of human life. Neither can rise to ascendancy without creating a distortion, and the wisest approach is a careful balance between the two principles.

This is a fascinating discussion with profound implications in anthropology, psychology, politics, economics, and beyond. As a writer, I originally purchased the work to relate its ideas to story structure, and the book doesn't disappoint here, either.

For whatever reason you're reading the book, if you can sort through the dry spells and the irrelevant material, there's much here for any student of the humanities to ponder.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somehow I think it would have been much more fun to be in a graduate seminar at the University of Chicago with Professor Turner or even a bar on the South Side listening to the Blues applying all that knowledge, insight and creativity. I have heard some good stories. This book is definitely for the anthropology minded. But the liminal mind as accessed through ritual whether African, Episcopalian (and now I guess we have both joined being the African Episcopalians are a major force in that branch of the universe) Tibetan or Zen. We offer light, incense, fruit, sweet tea and our consciousness to pass through that threshold, that gateway which even Heidegger talks about and probably stumbled through as far as I can gather from his later mutterings. Be careful oh scientist, philosopher, your methodology cannot protect you. There is no working condom for life.

[xDEAD ENDx · Rating 3 out of 5]

I find Turner's work on liminality both important and interesting, but there doesn't seem to be a compelling argument towards the "need" for an interplay (dialectic) between communitas and structure. In other words, the "structure" he nods to seems to be a manifestation of civilization (as far as I can tell, all the tribal groups he speaks of are civilized or at least sedentary agriculturists) rather than an inherent facet of human life and sociality.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I glossed over the detailed examination of several African tribal rituals (though, to Turner's credit, he deals with these in a presciently even-handed, open-minded manner, surprising considering how long ago this book came out) I got a lot out of Turner's famous examination of communitas versus stratified social structure. I'm already ruminating on the role of communitas in my own life and the everyday rituals I've observed within my culture.

[Patrick Oden · Rating 4 out of 5]

A classic of anthropology. Victor Turner here describes the concepts of liminality and communitas, the states of transition from one structure to a higher structure. This transition and the community formed by sharing this transition is assessed by description of African tribal rituals and then discussed more broadly in terms of consistent human behavior in many traditions.

Foundational.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is definitely a book to slog through, but it is also a seminal work on the numinous experience--indeed on many sorts of healing experience. Turner turns an anthropologist's eye on ritual. It will change the way you view reality.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book when I first read it for Anthro 101 back in the day. I have found it extremely useful in many aspects of my own life and work. I've never forgotten it. In fact, I crack it open once in a while to flip through and re-acquaint myself.

[Isabel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Es un libro muy interesante pionero de la religión y las implicaciones de los rituales, como crisis, como forma de transformación. Ya hay muchas críticas a este libro pero como punto de partida para entender la antropología simbólica.

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

A classic in the field of anthropology.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful.

Hippies.

Uh... problematic.

[Nikki · Rating 2 out of 5]

I fell asleep reading the excerpt required from this text....

[Kass · Rating 2 out of 5]

There wasn't anything particularly wrong with this book, but I found it pretty boring

[Maya · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book to read though a bit slow, and it is more about the Ndemba Rituals than anything.