Liminal Process Research Articles

Ethnicity or tribalism? The discursive construction of Zimbabwean national identity

In Zimbabwe, any attempt to discuss ethnicity risks being labelled as ‘tribalism’ and, therefore, divisive to a supposedly ‘united nation’. But what is ethnicity? This paper will attempt to discuss this issue, with particular focus on its intersection with nationalism and the construction of national identity. It will illuminate the liminal process of the ‘criminalisation of ethnicity’ through some moves aimed at blocking open discourse on ethnicity as a form of identity. Furthermore, the paper illustrates how Zimbabwe's Shona-dominated nationalist discourses tend to follow the social constructivist path, which publicly dismisses the existence of ethnicity while clandestinely embracing it for dubious political purposes. In the process, the paper will also challenge the Eurocentric theoretical perspectives underlying the normative engagement of ethnicity within the political and culturalist perspectives in Africa for presenting ethnicity as retrogressive and divisive. It is further argued that the scarcity of indigenous theoretical lenses of understanding ethnicity, exacerbated by grotesque forms of nationalism, as seen in Zimbabwe and elsewhere in Africa sustains the suppression of ethnic minority voices and the shrift dismissal of their issues as peripheral or regional. This lack of proper vent has thus led to the continued resurgence of violent ethnic upheavals across the African continent.

Death: antiquity and its legacy

Personal and yet utterly universal, inevitable and yet unknowable, death has been a dominant theme in all cultures, since earliest times. Different societies address death and the act of dying in culturally diverse ways; yet, remarkably, across the span of several millennia, we can recognize in the customs of ancient Greece and Rome ceremonies and rituals that have enduring present-day resonance. For example, preparing the corpse of the deceased, holding a memorial service, the practice of cremation and of burial in 'resting places' are all liminal processes that can trace their origin to ancient practices. Such rites - described by Cicero and Herodotus, among others - have defined traditional modern funerals. Yet of late there has been a shift away from classical ritual and sombre memorialization as the dead are transformed into spectacles. Ad hoc roadside shrines, 'virtual' burials, online guest-books and even jazz memorial processions and firework displays have come to the fore as new modes of marking, even celebrating, bereavement. What is causing this change, and how do urbanisation, economic factors and the rise of individualism play a part? Mario Erasmo creatively explores the nexus between classical and contemporary approaches to dying, death and interment. From theme funerals in St Louis to Etruscan sarcophagi, he offers a rich and insightful discussion of finitude across the ages.

Beyond Ritual as Performance. Towards Ritual as Dynamics and Virtuality

Abstract The essay addresses Victor Turner′s radical approach to the study of ritual and in particular the creative and generative potential of liminal processes. Two objectives guide the analysis. The first is to develop an approach that is not over-constrained by the dramatic or theatrical metaphor of performance that dominates much discussion of ritual. The second is to reorient an approach to the liminal as a stage in a process in itself and to explore it in terms of the concept of the virtual. In other words, the liminal as thoroughly an opening of potential and innovative emergence, a major direction of Turner′s approach.

Crossing the limen: terrorist prisoners and the politically liminal process of imprisonment

Being processed through prison, for the politically violent, can be understood to be a liminal occurrence. Drawing upon the experiences of imprisoned Republicans in Northern Ireland, this study contrasts internment and imprisonment and situates these militants within the conditions of liminality – the role of comradeship; the liminal as dangerous and polluting; their being hidden and stripped. The study explores how imprisonment seeks to refashion militants by undermining the frames for their militancy. Liminality is suggested as an alternative conceptual tool for critically reflecting upon counter-terrorism.

Performing k(yopo)‐rock: aesthetics, identity, and Korean migrant ritual in Germany

For a long time popular music and aesthetics have been considered as mutually exclusive categories within the musicological discourse. Based on the predominance of idealistic autonomy aesthetics, the concept of the (musical) ‘work of art’, at its core, legitimised the exclusion of popular music from the realm of aesthetics. Since the concept of autonomy constituted the beauty of art as a sphere free from social functions and independent from interests of the culture industries, two antithetical strategies in researching pop music have recently emerged: on the one hand pop music has been described as art, on the other hand it has been considered as a cultural phenomenon solely explored through sociological approaches. This paper looks for an alternative way in order to overcome the dualisms of art and everyday life, aesthetics and society, without neglecting the inherent aesthetic dimension of popular music cultures or the processes of identity‐making of the involved people. For this purpose, concepts developed in theatre and ritual studies seem to be fruitful for describing pop music as ritual in social space (musicking), and in terms of an aesthetic of the performative. Based on participant observations and interviews, the paper discusses a rock concert that the Yoon Band from South Korea held in Germany. In view of the event character and of liminal and transformative processes within the performance, it gives an example of how Korean people in Germany negotiate their identities and draw national boundaries through actively participating in and through music. Thereby, the way popular music constitutes the diasporic community can be detected in the underlying social, symbolic, and sound patterns of the performance.

The Woman Saint in Spanish Golden Age Drama (review)

Bulletin of the Comediantes • 2008 Vol. 60 No. 2 161 Reviews____________________________________________________________________ Gascón, Christopher D. The Woman Saint in Spanish Golden Age Drama. Lewisburg: Bucknell UP, 2006. 203 pp. The Woman Saint in Spanish Golden Age Drama is an ambitious and relevant piece of scholarship that synthesizes two areas of interest in comedia studies: the representation of women on the early modern Spanish stage and hagiographic theater. Diverging from previous critical tendencies, which typically mythologized the legendary qualities of the saint, Gascón examines the female religious figure through her specific characterization within the play and analyzes how this depiction interrogates contemporary society. For the purpose of his analysis, the author proposes three categories to describe the female saint: as a desiring subject, as the object of desire, and as the mediator of desire. Acknowledging the mutability of such a classification, he also points out how the character may correspond simultaneously to more than one of the categories or how she may start in one and end in another. Gascón’s introduction briefly discusses recent scholarship on hagiographical studies and gender issues in the comedia. Chapter 1 outlines the theoretical frame used to analyze the plays. In the Baroque comedia de santa, he explains, the woman saint’s relationship with desire—either her own or that of others—is at the center of the conflict that drives the plot. She represents the point “where worldly and religious desires collide” (23). The female ascetic’s situation is more complex and precarious than her secular counterpart because she must face not only the unique set of challenges tied to her holy vows but also those that all women confront as a result of their gender. It is necessary, therefore, to examine the character in terms of her function within religious and social contexts. Gascón then asserts that “[b]aroque religious drama brings passion and intensity to its exploration of the potential of worldly desires to cause personal or societal schism and of the power of religious desire to redeem humanity and establish peace” (31), an undeniable conclusion based on the careful contemplation of the dramatic texts—and the genre as a whole. Using as a point of departure Victor Turner’s conception of the similarities between ritual and theater, Gascón points out the ritualistic features of the comedia de santa, highlighting in particular the “liminal processes and self-reflexivity” caused by religious crisis (26). He notes how Turner’s four stages of social drama: breach, crisis, redress, and restoration, also structure the comedias de santa. Gascón recalls Peter Brooks’s theory of textual energetics to explain how the comedia de santa helped to resolve personal 162 Bulletin of the Comediantes • 2008 Vol. 60 No. 2 ____________________________________________________________________ Reviews religious conflict (32-33). Finally, René Girard’s conception of religion describes the social function of religion in society that is represented on the stage (36-37). The remaining chapters develop his arguments and are divided by the different roles assigned to the saintly woman in the plays. Chapter 2, “The Woman Saint as Desiring Object,” examines sor Marcela de San Félix’s Muerte del apetito and Félix Lope de Vega Carpio’s Vida y muerte de Santa Teresa de Jesús. Gascón’s analysis skillfully demonstrates how the playwrights present the protagonists in a state of conflict. To varying degrees, the women are troubled not only by their inner struggle with passion but also with external, societal forces that attempt to influence them. This struggle with desire is resolved as they embrace Christian virtue as the foundation of their identity. The third chapter, “Woman Saint as Forbidden Fruit and Christ Figure,” explores the woman saint’s relationship with society in her attempt at self-definition. Here he looks at Ángela de Azevedo’s La Margarita del Tajo que dio nombre a Santarén and Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s El mágico prodigioso. In both cases the women characters are objectified, and metaphorical parallels between the “forbidden fruit” and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ become evident. Once again, she is the point of contention, this time of others’ worldly desires, and her sacrifice is the...

Apostasy in the Wilderness: Paul's Message To the Corinthians in a State of Eschatological Liminality

Certain interpretative approaches have coloured the conclusions of some recent scholarly works on the subject of apostasy. Judith Gundry Volf's topical-exegetical method is one example. This article argues that the content of Paul's description of the Israelites in the wilderness focuses upon the notions of apostasy and eschatol ogy. As a point of departure, a cultural anthropological approach is used to illuminate 1 Cor. 10.1-12. Paul presupposes a Jewish apocalyptic understanding of eschatology in the language of the Israelites' journey through the wilderness, and the apostle's perspective is compared with the liminal processes of pilgrimages and rites of passage as discussed by cultural anthropologist Victor Turner. In light of this perspective, Paul is warning the Corinthian congregation that, although they had been initiated into the body of Christ through a separation process that was prefigured in Israel's exodus, many of them may be in danger of committing apos tasy during their liminal stage before reaching the aggregative goal of their lifelong journey.