Rites Of Transition Research Articles

Dramatizing Deviance: Sociological Theory and <i>The Witch of Edmonton</i>

Dramatizing Deviance:Sociological Theory and The Witch of Edmonton Julia M. Garrett [A] community's decision to bring deviant sanctions against one of its members is not a simple act of censure. It is an intricate rite of transition, at once moving the individual out of his ordinary place in society and transferring him to a special deviant position. The ceremonies which mark this change of status, generally, have a number of related phases. They supply a formal stage on which the deviant and his community can confront one another (as in the criminal trial); they make an announcement about the nature of his deviancy (a verdict or diagnosis, for example); and they place him in a particular role which is thought to neutralize the harmful effects of his misconduct (like the role of prisoner or patient). These commitment ceremonies tend to be occasions of wide public interest and ordinarily take place in a highly dramatic setting. —Kai T. Erikson, Wayward Puritans: A Study in the Sociology of Deviance The 1621 witch trial of Edmonton resident Elizabeth Sawyer is in many respects an unremarkable case. In fact, as I will explain in greater detail below, her trial might serve as a paradigm for the study of witch trials in early modern England. This particular trial, however, stands out in relief from the historical record in part because Sawyer's fate was taken up by a trio of London playwrights—Thomas Dekker, John Ford, and Thomas Rowley—and immediately translated to the stage in a 1621 play titled The Witch of Edmonton. While these dramatists were not alone in recognizing the commercial appeal of witch trials for theatrical adaptation, the play's compassionate depiction of Sawyer—largely Dekker's handiwork—is singular on a number of counts.1 Although hardly an exonerating portrait of the accused woman, the play nonetheless strives to inspire some sympathy for women like Sawyer who had been accused of witchcraft. Rather than focusing solely on the crimes attributed to such women, the [End Page 327] playwrights draw our attention to the circumstances of social alienation or even abuse toward suspects that often laid the foundation for suspicions of criminal conduct. This sympathy in itself is noteworthy, given the censorious climate for any form of skepticism about witch crimes, especially during the reign of King James I. What is particularly compelling about this play, however, is not simply the nature of its dissenting sentiments but the complexity of the social interactions it rehearses—the ways in which, as I will argue, it appears to be theorizing those social relations as much as representing them. This basic proposition, that a seventeenth-century play might serve as an early manifestation of sociological discourse, follows from a strong tradition of interdisciplinary scholarship in witchcraft studies. During the early 1970s Keith Thomas's Religion and the Decline of Magic and Alan Macfarlane's Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England imported interpretive methodologies from social anthropology into historical study and fundamentally transformed academic approaches to the study of witchcraft.2 Sociological historian Christina Larner, author of the most important studies on Scottish witch trials, further enhanced interdisciplinary insights about witchcraft through her nuanced analysis of the core gender questions raised by such trials. Larner's work is also important for its critique of the "bottom-up" theories about English witchcraft as represented in the work of historians such as Thomas and Macfarlane.3 More recent cultural studies scholars of early modern witchcraft (Frances E. Dolan, Gail Kern Paster, Diane Purkiss, Deborah Willis) have brought greater attention to literary representations and contemporary critical theory, formulating interpretations about witchcraft discourse through various theories of subjectivity, including feminist, psychoanalytic, and post-structuralist.4 Reflecting a broader shift in historical studies from macro-level to micro-level analyses of witch trials, these latter scholars have focused their attention on increasingly local and confined spaces—examining the social interactions of village communities, relations between neighbors, and the dynamics of the household. This narrower frame of social and cultural analysis is one that has clearly benefited from the hybrid interpretive methodologies of anthropology, sociology, history, and literary theory. However, an important dimension of sociological thought has yet to...

Espaces de réclusion et de rassemblement et expression graphique au Néolithique

Space is an inescapable data to analyse the schematic graphic expression in the Neolithic age and the practices, which are linked with it. A sign has meaning according to its place on the wall, in the shelter and in the area of decorated sites. We suppose that these painted shelters, and widely, the space where they are included, are visited during transition rites. Some of these sites have probably been used for persons in cloistered status. Others shelters are more areas for the gathering of an important group of men. We think that cloistering and gathering are adaptable with the diversity of environment. The Van Gennep's explanation of transition rites in three parts and the spatial analysis allow us to explain the transition and transformation of men on the decorated sites.

Social and Cultural Significance of the Sexual Cleansing Ritual and its Impact on HIV Prevention Strategies in Western Kenya

Traditional cultural practices and sexual rituals have an important role in the life and structure of tribal groups within Kenya. These cultural practices and rituals also play a significant role in the spread of HIV. The purpose of this descriptive qualitative study was to document the underlying social and cultural significance of the sexual cleansing ritual and to assess its impact on HIV prevention strategies. The study participants were selected by purposive and snowball sampling. Data were collected using in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and observations; they were analyzed using content analysis. The article gives detailed explanations of the meanings and symbols of the ritual in its cultural context as a ritual of social transition. Sexual intercourse is perceived as a sacred rite when performed as a ritual. It is associated with most social cultural activities like planting, harvesting, weddings and burial ceremonies. The underlying intention of this ritual is to cleanse evil spirits and to sanctify. Widows who are not cleansed are ostracized and discriminated. The continued practice of the ritual is perpetuated by a shared common belief system that affects social interactions of the community members. Widows and cleansers are believed to be purveyors of the HIV virus. The ritual encourages unprotected sex with multiple partners. These are barriers to HIV prevention strategies that are aimed at changing sexual behaviors.

Outcasts of Echo Park, Heroes of Brentwood: Quinceañera, Keeping Up with the Steins and Coming of Age in Ethnic L.A.

The challenge of maintaining a national identity as a subculture in America is most evident in connection with special occasions, like transition rites. Coming of age is such an event. The continuity and transformation of the subculture is at stake. In American cities, as exemplified by Los Angeles, the ethnic neighborhood becomes a New Old Country. Those who welcome change and those who resist change may belong surprisingly to unexpected categories, and the roles of the generations can also be more nuanced than popular stereotypes suggest.

Textual Categories and Gender Images In a Women's Wailing Performance

The wailing of Yemenite Jewish women, as preserved in the Yemenite Jewish community in Israel, is presented as a case study for analysis of and comparison with other existing wailing cultures. The article uses a model of identities to examine anthropological conventions that interpret death rituals as rites of transition and crisis. A well-known function of wailing—as a bridge between life and death—is decoded in view of the model. The gender dimension of wailing is examined by counterposing and juxtaposing feminine wailing to masculine wailing at death events. The article describes the relative contributions of men and women to the stability of their community and analyzes the unique characteristics of the psycho-social power of women's wailing.

Affected by Ritual. Predictors of Agreement with Church Marriage Rites in The Netherlands

AbstractWhy do couples opt for a church wedding ritual living in a modern secularized society. Based on the ritual form hypothesis of Lawson and McCauley, the authors identify the specific church wedding rites as special agent rituals and the rites that form the ritual framework of every eucharist or prayer (and communion) services (eucharistic rites) as special instrument rituals. The participants not only distinguished the church wedding rites from the eucharistic rites, but also discerned a third group of rites, musical rites. 26% of the participants were affected by the eucharistic rites, whereas 63% and 80% were affected respectively by the musical and church wedding rites. The research shows that different indicators of religious socialisation and conceptions of marriage predict the extent to which participants feel affected by the three types of rites. In the case of the musical and church marriage rites the sole influence is the importance attached to participation in ecclesiastic transitional rituals. Conceptions of marriage account for only a small part of the relation between religious socialisation and the extent to which people feel affected by church marriage rituals. Only in the case of the eucharistic rites religious socialisation and conceptions of marriage are decisive. The extend of affection by the church wedding rituals depends mostly on the importance the participants attach to ecclesiastic transitional rituals. The church is seen as a service institution that dispenses transitional rituals. In this way, the church helps marrital couples and their social environment to cope with the contingent elements of these pivotal moments.

Performing Audience. On the Social Constitution of Focused Interaction at Celebrations in Mali

Anthropos , Seite 3 - 18

Offertradition og religion i ældre jernalder i Sydskandinavien – med særlig henblik på bebyggelsesofringer

Offertradition og religion i ældre jernalder i Sydskandinavien – med særlig henblik på bebyggelsesofringer

Rewritten rites: language and social relations in traditional and contemporary funerals

Despite their personal and social significance, life-course transition rituals (marking, for example, birth, marriage, death) have received scant attention in discourse analysis. Yet radical changes in them, including a growth in secular ceremonies, can provide insight into contemporary discourse and society. This article considers the case of funerals. By contrasting the openings of a traditional religious (Christian) funeral, an updated version of the same, and a secular alternative, it seeks to elucidate the nature of pragmatic, semantic and linguistic changes. The argument is that the most significant contrast is not between religious and secular, but between traditional and contemporary, with the latter being marked by the reduced authority of the celebrant, greater personalization and choice, euphemistic reference to death, less poetic language, and diminished ritual movement. The article concludes with discussion of possible connections between these dimensions of change, and of the extent to which contemporary funerals can be regarded as rituals.

Isaak Babel'’s Tales of Collectivization: Rites of Transition in the New Soviet Village

Isaac Babel'’s two stories depicting the 1930 collectivization campaign must be placed beside his other story cycles in any effort to understand the writer and his time. The resistance to authority displayed in “Kolyvushka” and the reconciliation reached for in “Gapa Guzvha” have in common an important and hitherto unnoted feature: the implicit adaptation of Orthodox religious ritual to new functions. In both stories the climactic encounter with officialdom shows how vestiges of religious ritual become improvised rites of transition, religious in form but political in content. Placing Babel”s stories in the context of the surrounding cultural and political discourse (including Iosif Stalin's “Dizzy with Success article, but focusing on the pages of Novyi mir, where one of the stories appeared), this article explores links between Babef”s dark depiction of the countryside in crisis and contemporary treatments of collectivization, religion, and literary engagement.

Rites, right?

PurposeModern careers have become increasingly non‐predictable, characterized by many occupational changes and transitions. Given this background, this paper analyses the potential contributions of the anthropological concept of rites of passage in scientific as well as practical terms. It is argued that, while this concept is not a fully developed theory, it qualifies as a useful model for specific aspects of career transitions.Design/methodology/approachAfter a general introduction of the concept of rites of passage, the paper examines how it has already been applied to career research, and proposes some fresh developments in order to interpret the role of transitions in modern careers.FindingsAlthough the concept ofrites de passagehas mostly been applied to very traditional career paths, this paper argues for its validity for modern careers. In particular, the emphasis on a particularrite de passage, namely therite de marge, allows one to focus on the non‐stability of careers today and its consequences for individuals.Practical implicationsEven if the effects of their application are neither mechanical nor calculable, neverthelessrites de passagepresent interesting possibilities for management purposes.Originality/valueIntroducing the concept ofrites de passageshows that modern careers especially, because of their lack of stability, need transitional rites for occupational identity and the entering of new groups. To be aware of this is of great relevance for individuals and for career management.

From Victim to Victimhood: Truth Commissions and Trials as Rituals of Political Transition and Individual Healing

The victim has been put at the centre of states' post‐atrocity strategies to reform governance, rehabilitate state authority and promote reconciliation. This paper explores the role of the victim in the truth commissions and trials aimed at reconciliation and justice and their experiences of the outcomes. The successor state's focus on recovering victims after mass atrocity ritually inverts the former regime's project of producing them. In both truth commissions and trials the state seeks to manipulate the ‘spectacle’ of the victim's pain and suffering to publicly project the power of the state for different ends. Whereas the repressive state seeks to deepen the effects of violence as a strategy of rule, the successor state seeks to reverse the social and political effects of violence. These strategies of transitional justice have sought to reverse the effects of exclusion, to reverse the direction of state power from producing victims towards redeeming victims, from injuring to healing.Because of the problems of mass criminality and widespread impunity, truth commissions have become widely adopted in preference to trials as a bureaucratic response to bureaucratic murder. They set about producing a ‘democratising truth’ through a process of public inquiry located outside the state in the people. On the whole, the process, the public testimony and the witnessing has been better received than the product, the reports and the reparations. By contrast, trials seek to produce a societal consensus based on the recovery of the law. But in both cases the victim is redeemed through the individualising discourse of law or the polarising logic of trials which establishes the guilty and innocent. The truth of atrocity is found in affirming gross human rights abuses in victims, in transacted violence rather than the deeper structures of violence. Thus, victimhood is built on a universalising human rights discourse which overly individualises the origins of atrocity.

La prise du «voile» chez les converties à l'islam. Un ultime rite de passage

The "Veil Taking" among Converts to Islam : A Final Transition Ritual This paper intends to study the taking of the hijâb, the legal Islamic clothe that covers up the whole body with the exception of face and hands, among converts to Islam, according to transition rituals such as codified by ethnology. After the separation from a world totally exempt from Islamic reference, which is not without consequence because of its somehow brutal dimension, the incorporation in the adoptive group corresponds to the individual re-birth within the community to which one identifies clearly. This process carried out in midst of Western European secularised societies puts into question the latter about the deliquescence of sacred meaning.

`I am the Prince of Pain, for I am a Princess in the Brain': Liminal Transgender Identities, Narratives and the Elimination of Ambiguities

This article explores the formation and construction of transgendered identities, `the various ontological and public narratives in which actors plot or find themselves' (Somers and Gibson, 1994: 67). Research I have conducted in Perth, Western Australia, shows that while a multiplicity of gendered identities circulate in various spaces and places, there is also a pressing need for many transgendered persons to ultimately define themselves within existing and recognizable `normal' gender boundaries: instead of marking difference, many seem to eliminate it. Often identity goes from being `liminal' and multiple where males can be females, females can be males, and public gender categories are temporarily and spatially suspended, to being ultimately singular, recognizable and stable (as demanded by wider medical, sociocultural and public understandings of gender). Here, I investigate what Victor Turner (expanding on the work of Arnold Van Gennep, 1960) has called the `The Liminal Period' (1967). Following and building on the arguments initially proposed by Anne Bolin who focused on transsexual rites of transition in the USA (1988), I look at the theory of liminality in relation to transgendered rites de passage in Perth. While recognizing the large body of work from queer studies,¹ which turns its gaze toward social practices that organize a society and sexualize the `bodies, desires, acts, identities, social relations, knowledges, culture and social institutions' (Seidman, 1996: 13), I choose instead to draw on and apply particular concepts proposed by anthropologist, Mary Douglas (1966, 1970). Employing her notions of purity and danger to relevant questions in this article, I explore how cultures understand, interpret and deal with variance and anomaly.

Rituály přijetí dítěte do lokální komunity

As part of a research of transition rituals in the Cypriot mountain village of Peristerona I watched the act of baptism and its formal course, content and social impact. This paper focuses on symbolical acts of acceptation of a child both into the community of the Orthodox church and the broader village community. Peristerona is an agricultural village with about 200 permanent residents. Although the village residents have a very close relationship with the nearby town, they have also very close ties with their family, insist on neighbourly relationships, and preserve a number of traditional ceremonies and rituals. Tradition supports a ritual which consists of the acceptation of a child into the closest family, the local community as well as the Orthodox church. A child is accepted into the closest family immediately after its birth and this act is an independent ritual. On the other hand, acceptation into the church and the village community is postponed to a later time, but six months after the birth of the child at the latest. Both rituals make part of a single, comprehensive ritual, which includes the selection of a godfather, a religious ritual in church with an active role played by the priest and the godfather, the ritual of acceptation by the village community connected with a feast and, last but not least, the protection and observation of a child in the transient period which lasts another three days after the baptism is made. Baptism is the most important act in the life of every individual. Without baptism one cannot undergo further vital events in life such as the church wedding or legally valid burial. Baptism is also a vital step for the inclusion of an individual into the local village community. The child is not regarded as a fully-fledged member of a village community unless it is baptised. However, baptism is not only viewed as the acceptation of a child by the Orthodox church and the village community. It also amounts to the creation of a secondary family background the child obtains in godfather's family. The whole process of the acceptation of a child into a local community is gradual and lasts several days. The child is finally included into it only after three days, after the transient period ends. After three days the child is bathed and finally included into the village community without any further acceptation rituals.

Group Rites and Trainer Wrongs in Employee Experiences of Job Change

This paper investigates how group‐controlled transition rites in an air traffic control organization are experienced by job changers and those responsible for socializing newcomers on behalf of the work group and unit. Contrary to earlier functionalist accounts, these admission rites were neither fully understood as intended nor accepted as legitimate by job changers. The findings indicate that shared meanings between newcomers and `‘lders’ may not be necessary if such rites are to be accepted as an essential feature of the process of granting or withholding membership of the unit. More crucial to their acceptability is whether or not job changers believe that elders are fully acting in the interests of the group and unit. We show that the legitimacy of such socialization practices is subject to decay from organization‐wide restructuring which weakens units' social coherence and gives rise to doubts about the integrity of those members who assume an elder role. The implication of these findings is that group‐controlled transition rites emerge where management has no choice but to delegate features of work control to the group. Equally, if the legitimacy of such group‐level practices is undermined by organizational changes, it is unlikely that this form of socialization can be rectified by management intervention

Restless Dead: Encounters between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece

During the archaic and classical periods, Greek ideas about the dead evolved in response to changing social and cultural conditions--most notably changes associated with the development of the polis, such as funerary legislation, and changes due to increased contacts with cultures of the ancient Near East. In Restless Dead, Sarah Iles Johnston presents and interprets these changes, using them to build a complex picture of the way in which the society of the dead reflected that of the living, expressing and defusing its tensions, reiterating its values and eventually becoming a source of significant power for those who knew how to control it. She draws on both well-known sources, such as Athenian tragedies, and newer texts, such as the Derveni Papyrus and a recently published lex sacra from Selinous. Topics of focus include the origin of the goes (the ritual practitioner who made interaction with the dead his specialty), the threat to the living presented by the ghosts of those who died dishonorably or prematurely, the development of Hecate into a mistress of ghosts and its connection to female rites of transition, and the complex nature of the Erinyes. Restless Dead culminates with a new reading of Aeschylus' Oresteia that emphasizes how Athenian myth and cult manipulated ideas about the dead to serve political and social ends.

Women's Roles in the Mourning Rituals of the Akan of Ghana

Akan women play central roles in the care and disposal of the dead and the management of bereavement. Mortuary rituals provide members of the society with adaptive means of mourning the dead, and the expressions of grief ensure a systematic adjustment to human loss. Funerals and mourning rites include music and dance, which capture so many aspects of Akan transitional rituals. The funeral celebration has become a perfect medium for not only understanding Akan traditional and popular culture, but also for appreciating the impact of social changes on Akan society.

Psychoanalytic Studies of Religion: A Critical Assessment and Annotated Bibliography

Series Foreword by G.E. Gorman Introduction Psychoanalytic Studies of Religion: A Critical Assessment The Basic Theory Historical Development of the Psychoanalytic Approach Freud's Writings on Religion A Model Analysis Using Clinical Data Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis Critiques Overview Annotated Bibliography General Sources Freud's Original Writings Critical Reviews and Overviews Freud's Jewish Identity Origins of Religion Religion and Individual Psychodynamics Religious Experience Conversion Biographies Mythology Rituals Transition Rites Judaism Anti-Semitism Christianity Asian Religions (Buddhism, Hinduism) Ego Psychology and Religion Object Relations Theory and Religion Academic Studies of Psychoanalytic Hypotheses Mother-Worship Father Projection Author Index Title Index Subject Index

Let's Get Our Houses in Order: The Role of Transitional Rituals in Constructing Moral Kindergartners

This article stems from a participant-observation study I conducted in a full-day kindergarten classroom in a central North Carolina public school during the autumn of 1994. In attempting to understand how morality was constructed by the teacher and children there, I saw that the teacher utilized a series of rituals to help the children shed their external (home) roles, make the transition to their school roles, and reaggregate as students (as opposed to children). While she conceptualized these activities as merely organizing the children for the school day, I interpreted them as a manifestation of rites of passage (van Gennep, 1960; Turner, 1969). This paper is the second in a three-part examination of these rites of passage, in which I map out and explore the teacher's use of transitional or liminal rituals to construct the moral identity of the role of student and foster the children's attachment to that role.