Rites Of Transition Research Articles

Рассказ А.П. Чехова «Ванька»: оборотность мира. Вопрос о фольклорной традиции

Galieva Marianna Andreevna The paper considers the chrestomathy work of Russian literature - the story by A.P. Chekhov «Van’ka». On the one hand the story preserves the definition of «Christmas». Attention was drawn to the festival motive itself for the events that occurred in the sacred ritual hour. On the other hand, the archetypal patterns that are organically included in the poetics of narrative, require a certain folklore comment. So, archetype window hides transitional ritual, switching the reader’s eye to the domestic space into existential, Otherworldly. Also the fact of writing the letter «to nowhere», the problem lies drawn by the Russian people, «limit», an unknown land that genetically traced back to folk aesthetics, poetics of the fairy tale. The question of Chekhov’s folklorism is debatable, but it is worth noting that the folk tradition in poetics can manifest itself both overtly and latently. The most important are the forms of «hidden» folklorism, since they are organically integrated into the artistic fabric of the work. Key words : folklore, literature, Chekhov, “another kingdom”, archetype.

In-betweenness: being mother, academic and artist

ABSTRACTIn-betweenness is related to liminality, is intermediary, interstitial, transitional and hybrid and has been theorised in anthropology as a culturally recognised liminal state that occurs during rites of passage or transition. In this paper, the focus on liminal states facilitates an understanding of transversal movements between being mothers, academics and artists and recognizes the in-betweenness of family and professional life and their influences upon one another. Whilst privileging the in-between makes for a rich and creative life for women, this life comes at a cost within the hierarchical structures of our public and educational institutions. This paper explores ways to develop collegial and personal connections that are particularly empowering for female academics. It uncovers how together we can inhabit ambiguous, disruptive and playful states and then reintegrate into established socio-political structures with a renewed and compelling sense of purpose.

The Kundum Festival in Ghana

Abstract During the Kundum festival in Ghana, people ritually express their wishes for productive farming and fishing seasons, social progress, spiritual protection, and a healthy natural environment, bringing into play the nonhumans expected to uphold or oppose these objectives. This article contributes to an improved analysis of the perspectives of intersubjectivity, relationship, and community in African rituals by examining the interaction between nonhumans and humans in the Kundum festival. It analyzes some of the transitional rites that constitute Kundum. These rites are less the markers of life-cycle or seasonal transitions than the very cultural resources by which transitions are put into effect in creating hope for the fertility of farmlands and rivers. They are linked to the creation of a purified food production season, to healing, to the roles assigned to nonhumans in the initiation of the festival, and to a configuration of relationships in a shared world.

Production of Liminal Places – An Interdisciplinary Account

Using the concept of liminality, this paper provides a comparative study of ritual places. The concept was introduced by Arnold van Gennep in his study "rites de passage", in which he differentiated between rites of separation (préliminaires), rites of transition (liminaires) and rites of aggregation (postiliminaires). The main characteristics of liminality were elaborated by Victor Turner: of crucial importance are the temporary dissolution or reversal of existing social structures and the visit of places that are set apart due to their geographical or cultural location. Accordingly, these places enhance the emotional and physical experiences of the individuals participating in the rituals. We discuss case studies from Prehistoric Archaeology, Classical Archaeology and Ethnology: (I) the Heidentor near Egesheim on the Swabian Jura in southwestern Germany, used during the Hallstatt and the La Tène period, (II) the Early Iron Age ritual complex of Francavilla Marittima close to the Ionian coast of Calabria in southern Italy and (III) the recently used pilgrimage site in the Manzhyly-Ata Valley on the shore of Lake Yssyk-Kul in Kyrgyzstan. The comparative analysis focuses on the spatial and material expressions of liminality and its social significance: the history of origin and usage, special forms of artifacts involved in the rituals and the geographical or cultural location. Due to the exceptional nature of the case studies, their location and long (dis)continuous histories of use, they differ from contemporaneous structures. Altogether, the concept of liminality provides new perspectives on ritual sites and how they were embedded in their surrounding landscapes.

Техніки репрезентації Іншого в контексті медіа - ритуалізації (на матеріалі тревел - журналів «Мир туризма» і «Мандри»)

Media ritualization is an effective tool of ethical ‘Other’ representation and plays a relevant role in travel publications, but still it needs an adequate scientific coverage. The main objective of the research was to identify the techniques of ritualization for creating the image of ‘Other’ by the examples of Ukrainian travel magazines “Mir Tourizma” and “Мandry” issued in 2010-2014. The methodology of qualitative analysis was used to expose the implicit assumptions of the texts. The semiotic method was important for this research to deepen the understanding of contextual dimensions of the media ritualization. Results / findings. Such mechanisms of ritualization as transition and initiation, which are based on dynamic interchange of the social system poles (“work / rest”, “everyday / holiday”), as well as the principles of ‘Other’ conceptualization shaping the basic for the modern travel-magazine are described in the study. Relaxation and pleasure, as well as the excitement of adventure divert the reader from his/her everyday life and show the ‘Other’ as an unusual life. This temporary break-off accompanied with certain satisfaction, a sense of calmness, or to the contrary, a feeling of testing limits – is the basis for the ritual of transition. In the media practice the ritualization technologies are aimed at making the ‘Other’ more comfortable, absorbing its obscurity, setting up a potential tourist to trust the “transition”, so that the impression of the ‘Other’ becomes more accessible and more convenient. The tools and schemes of ritualization are characterized by weakening of rational principles and content saturation, but, at the same time, they demonstrate functional efficiency establishing close contextual and psychological connection between the travel experience of the journalist and the recipient of the information (the reader), thus removing the barriers which prevent from the contact with the ‘Other’. Oneof the keyconceptsthatcan be traced inUkrainiantravel magazines is the pleasure of “switched off” life. Tostrengthen thesensibility, the travelmagazines actively use visual accompaniment in their publications. Sacredimages,photographsare designed to foreground the capabilities for breaking away from the humdrum. The concepts of “miracle”, “fairy-tale”, “secret”, the techniques of “authenticity” of the ‘Other’ representation and the mythologization of the locus are also analysed in the study.

The ritualization of transitions in the project life cycle: A study of transition rituals in construction projects

To manage the project life cycle and facilitate transitions, Project Management (PM) research often points to temporal models and structuring devices. However, the social and symbolic facet of transitions in projects remains understudied. Therefore, this research focuses on the ritualization of transitions in projects. Specifically, the aim is to gain insight into the practice and meaning of transition rituals in the project life cycle. To do so we draw from field research in the infrastructure sector where participant-observation was carried out during eight transition rituals in four Dutch construction projects, and 58 interviews were executed with project participants. The contribution to the PM debate on temporary organizing lies in the conceptualization of transition rituals as powerful symbolic and strategic practices in the project life cycle, and in the provision of an overview showcasing how, when and why transition rituals are practiced to facilitate transitions and embed a project in its environment.

Transition to higher education: the role of initiation practices

Background: Literature draws attention to the relationships between the initial experiences of students as they begin their higher education and how they fare subsequently. In Portugal, the new student’s reception is ritualised by tradition, and involves the organisation of an entire integration ceremony (known as praxe) proposed by peers. This paper argues that initiation practices in Portuguese higher education can be regarded as a transition ritual, a group of symbolic activities that brand the shift from secondary to tertiary education.Purpose: This paper aims to analyse students’ observations about initiation practices within this framework.Sample: Participants were 30 first-year undergraduate students (‘freshmen’) attending a Portuguese university.Design and methods: Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with the students. Qualitative analysis was undertaken. Transcripts were coded according to themes and analysed using a constant comparison approach, to allow for the emergence of categories.Findings: The findings from this small-scale investigation describe and categorise freshmen’s experiences and perspectives on initiation practices. Both positive and negative perspectives about praxe were identified.Conclusions: The submission relationship that underlies these transition rituals tended to be regarded by first-year students as an inevitable and necessary ‘price to pay’ for their entrance in the academic world.

Cultures of education and rituals of transition from home to the infant toddler center. Observing interactions and professional development

At the infant-toddler center, the rituals of transition that mark children’s arrival and going home times offer interesting kaleidoscopes for the study of interactive dynamics with the associated meanings and implicit educational models. Numerous pedagogical studies have investigated the meanings of these events, for the most part drawing on the monocultural model of classical attachment theory to analyze interactions between adults and children. Far less research has approached these rituals using triadic, systemic and intercultural categories of analysis in order to explore not only educators’ actions but also what is going on in their minds. In this paper, we discuss examples from a recent study on rituals of transition in the multicultural context of an infant toddler center, combining description of the timing, behaviors and interactive styles of children and adults, with analysis of the thoughts and representations of the educators.

Collective Identity, Intergenerational Relations, and Civic Society

This paper examines transition rituals and activities of Norwegian Russ (youth graduating from high school). Drawing on observations, archival and in-depth interview data collected over six years, we make two important findings. First, through their creative participation in traditional rituals Russ develop and share their own collective identity while also contributing to civic society more generally. Second, intergenerational relations play a central role in the Russ experience and through their activities with younger children and adults Russ reflect on their own temporal positions in the generational order. Our analysis contributes to better understanding of the changing nature of the symbolic value of Russ in Norwegian society, debate about the growing commercialization of youth traditions and activities in a global economy, and the complexity of the liminal aspect of rites of transition.

Personnages masculins, signes anthropomorphes et expression graphique schématique au Néolithique dans le sud de la France

To analyze human walled and rocked presentations is the opportunity to come back on the nature of the schematic process, this type of graphic expression, which plays at the same time on form and on contents of figures. The male figure represents one of the five great categories of figures of the iconographic Neolithic corpus and is also subjected to a large diversity of graphic versions, since identifiable presentations up to unintelligible signs. This diversity is taken into account by no taxonomy since it results at once, of a graphic bias, of mental schemata, of cultural competences and the context of elaboration of figures. The process of simplification of the male figure passes however by the bodily schema of this one. The signification of its line on the rock is perhaps to link up with the passage of his author on and by the site as part of transition rites.

Early Woodland Ritual use of Caves in Eastern North America

AbstractMammoth and Salts caves in west-central Kentucky were Intensively mined for gypsum and other sulfate minerals during the Early Woodland period (ca. 1000–200 B.C.). I propose that this mining was part of a larger ritual performance assodated with the initiation of adolescent males into adulthood. Drawing on ethnological literature, I suggest that, beginning in the Early Woodland, caves became integral settings for male rites of passage. This argument is based on (1) ethnographic examples of male initiation that invokes the use of caves for secrecy and seclusion, (2) fecal steroid analysis that indicates exclusive male activity, (3) medicinal use of cave minerals as a purgative, (4) evidence of sensory deprivation and possible use of psychotropic substances to heighten states of consciousness, and (5) collection of gypsum as a symbolic marker of transitional rites. Using an institutional economic approach, I further suggest that Early Woodland ritual cave use is correlated with the formation of new social institutions and new forms of property relations stemming from the emergence of horticultural economies in the Eastern Woodlands.

Child Sacrifice in Egyptian Monastic Culture: From Familial Renunciation to Jephthah's Lost Daughter

The Apophthegmata Patrum tells the story of a man who, wishing to join a monastery, reenacts Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac by proceeding to throw his son in the Nile River on the command of the monastic father. Like Isaac, the boy is spared. This account of extreme familial renunciation in the service of the ascetic life is not the only account of a child killing or attempted killing in monastic literature. Nor does the biblical prefigurement of ascetic renunciation exhaust these narratives' significance. This essay examines accounts of child killings in Egyptian monastic culture through the lens of various textual and visual sources: the Greek Apophthegmata Patrum , paintings of the sacrifice of Jephthah's daughter and the averted sacrifice of Isaac at the monasteries of Saint Antony on the Red Sea and Saint Catherine at Sinai, and exegesis of the same biblical narratives in the writings of the Egyptian monk Shenoute and other ascetic authors. What we will see is that powerful moments or rituals of transition and transformation accompany these stories. Thus the textual and visual representations of these killings or attempted killings are theologically, politically, and even socially generative. They reaffirm priestly authority and theological orthodoxy in the monasteries at the same time as they invite male monks to identify with both male and female exemplars. As these paintings and texts reveal, child sacrifice in monastic culture represented not merely an ascetic injunction to abandon family, but, perhaps more radically, an ascetic reproduction of monastic community and genealogy.

‘Spinning’ Warhol: Celebrity brand theoretics and the logic of the celebrity brand

The paper takes as its subject celebrity and consumption and the cultural logic of the celebrity brand. It introduces the concept of celebritisation as the engine of celebrity culture, discussing ways in which celebrity brands operate as ‘map-making’ devices which situate consumers within networks of symbolic resources. We construct particulars via an investigative narrative that draws critically upon published accounts of the life and work of Andy Warhol, generating observations of signature practices and technologies of formation of Celebrity Brandhood. Within an inductive architecture we modulate to celebrity brands as transmediated marketing accomplishments which trade upon allure, glamour and charisma, constructed around rituals of transition, belonging, intimacy, and affect. We suggest that at the heart of the machinery of the cultural logic of the Celebrity Brand is the mediated spectacle as a field of social invention and transformation. In this way, the paper opens up pathways toward further interpretive analyses of celebrity brands, articulating the basis of accounts of Celebrity Brand Theoretics.

Ritual and Performance in Domestic Violence Healing: From Survivor to Thriver Through Rites of Passage

This article describes a group for domestic violence survivors to help them move past a "liminal" state in which their social identity is characterized by being "victim" or "survivor" to one of "incorporation" defined by "thriving" and joy. Through the creation and use of healing rituals, blessings, poetry, art and music, the women in the group establish "communitas" and support each other in the work of self-reclamation and healing. The group, "Rites of Passage" is intended for women who have completed shelter-based crisis interventions, and uses a structured curriculum that integrates theoretical and philosophical concepts from anthropology, post-modernism, humanistic psychology, social work, and existentialism. Through the Rites of Passage group, women identify and traverse a healing trajectory to construct an identity founded on strength and fulfillment. Patterned after non-western sex-segregated rites of transition, those who go through the group celebrate its conclusion with a defining ritual that publically marks their change in identity and status.

Helen Small, The Long LifeThe Long Life. HelenSmall. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Pp. viii+346.

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Sacred Objects, Healing Prayer: The Use of Transitional Phenomena in a Client's Recovery from Incest

Utilizing the lens of object relations theory, this case study explores how issues of spirituality have surfaced—and continue to surface—in the therapeutic work of a young male survivor of incest who, at critical points in the treatment, has utilized “sacred” transitional objects and ritual as ways of grounding the work. Drawing on the work of Donald Winnicott, the use of transitional phenomena is examined as a reflection of the client's ways of making meaning of his history of incest and his means of facilitating a greater degree of safety in the therapeutic process. The language of contemporary pastoral theology further nuances the discussion of the client's spiritual issues and the process of healing occurring in the therapeutic relationship.

Psychosocial effects of participation in rituals of transitional justice: A collective-level analysis and review of the literature of the effects of TRCs and trials on human rights violations in Latin America

This article examines the effects of participation in transitional justice rituals, including, for example, trials and Truth and Reconciliation Commissions. These mechanisms have been designed to confront massive violations of human rights in the context of post-conflict situations and dictatorships. Truth Commissions and trials have instrumental goals of distributive justice, and serve as rituals given their marked symbolic character, helping to achieve reconciliation and the reconstruction of social norms. Evidence from South Africa and Rwanda suggests that participation in trials increases negative emotions and symptoms, and, thus, may not help to heal individual suffering. Moreover, the data from Rwanda and South Africa demonstrates that rituals also increase negative emotional climate, being costly for the society. In contrast, participants in such rituals have evidenced increased empowerment in Guatemala and South Africa, despite conditions of limited justice and reparation. Moreover, the evidence from Rwanda confirms there are some positive consequences: participation in community-based or traditional trials, known locally as Gacaca, improves intergroup relationships, decreases shame in victims, and decreases negative stereotypes and individualization of out-groups. Finally, a collective analysis of 16 Latin America nations found that trials and a successful Truth Commission provoked macrosocial benefits, reinforcing respect for human rights.

Towards an Analysis of the Signs of the ‘Unknown’: Objects with Rituals in Turkish Culture

ABSTRACTThis paper is an attempt to read certain rituals and objects in Turkish culture from a semiotic and anthropological framework. The anthropological analysis is based on the terms from social anthropology and structuralism, like rite of passage, myth and transition, to discuss and theorize the cultural background of the phenomenon in more detail. The reason for such an analysis lies in the fact that every object with a ritual could be seen in the material form or a strong reflection of an underlying cosmology or ideology. The common point of the objects chosen for this study is that all depend on a dynamic formal change – from liquid to solid – believed to signify the notion of the ‘unknown’. Change in the form in each case recalls the binary oppositions of form/matter and form/function as fundamental debates on design and material culture, especially in a non-Western society.

Changing Lives, Changing Rites: Women Creating Rituals of Transition

This article looks at rituals which women create to mark transitions in their lives, arguing that ritual making is an intentional process of constructing identity and theology. Rituals function as enacted narrative, helping the women who perform them to construct identity, and gain a sense of agency and empowerment. Through the rituals, meanings are shared and the political dimensions of private experience explored. The article concludes by considering the implications of women's practice of ritual making for practical theology.

Snow Whitein West and South Slavic Tradition

This paper analyzes the tale-type Snow White (AaTh/ATU 709) in the folk tradition of West and South Slavs, which preserves different versions of this tale. AaTh/ATU 709 is found among all West and South Slavic groups, with the exception of Kashubians from the vicinity of Gdańsk, Polabians, a minority (now extinct) in Germany, and the South Slavs in Montenegro. The paper examines the characteristics of the tales, both from the aspect of their contents and meaning as well as their imagery, reflecting social rituals, transition rites, regional and cultural characteristics, and temporal and spatial aspects that have been preserved in them. These tales emphasize the role of the mother, which seems to be a contrasting (mirror) image of the midwinter deity. Interesting elements in the Slavic Snow White tales are the temporary dwelling of the heroine and the creatures with which the girl finds shelter, their number and their appearance, which vary considerably. The motif of the heroine's marriage to the chieftain of these men who live in the forest may be connected with the custom of the false marriage: it had a protective function which served to ensure a happy marriage with the right man. While the many layers of this fairy-tale remain hidden to the average reader, its multifarious variants exhibit regional peculiarities and elements from local history. Influences from Central European, East Slavic, Mediterranean and Oriental, especially Turkish traditions can be traced throughout the texts.