Published in the Journal of Beliefs and Values (vol 30 number 2, August 2009, pages 209-212) is a paper on Victor Turner, liminality and ciltural performance. It can be found at http://eprints.worc.ac.uk/565/ Victor Turner noticed as an anthropologist how performance marked a change of status (e.g. from childhood to adulthood), the performance itself being an in-between state. He applied this later to performance generally, where a carnival or play puts people into this liminal (=threshold) state after which they emerge changed.
See also the thread 'victor turner'.
Showing posts with label victor turner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label victor turner. Show all posts
Sunday, 13 December 2009
Monday, 9 March 2009
Victor Turner, social process and performance
This post is a summary of a review of the work of Victor Turner, particularly Victor Turner and Contemporary Cultural Performance, edited by Graham St. John, 2008. Turner focused on the concept of liminality, 'betwixt and between', adapted from the 1908 work of Arnold van Gennep on rites of passage. He applied this first to an African tribal society he had studied, and then to modern Western society. At a time when deep social structure was being emphasised, he rooted for social process. Social performances (such as rituals) cemented the comminity together by reducing tension.
That Turner generalised van Gennep's schema has introduced a range of confusions which this volume in part sorts out and in part magnifies. The concept of liminality (the state of being on a threshold) was applied both to major upheavals and to performances generally, distinguishing only between ‘authentic’ liminality, and playful artifices such as the theatre which are named liminoid, or liminal-like. Liminality is viewed as an in-between state of mind, in between fact and fiction (in Turner’s language indicative and subjunctive), in between statuses. This concept has endured in performance studies and has the potential for wider usage. His arguments for a positive liminal state of mind, which he called communitas, also has potential for inspiring creative ‘beyond the box’ approaches. This is ‘bottom-up’, multi-perspectival, democratic – or in his terminology anti-structural, beyond authority structures. Turner drew all this from the idea that ritual is transformative, even therapeutic, social drama, not only functional but eufunctional – viz. working for good. This is an attempt to define the creative process, and is still inspiring research and practice. Creativity as theshold still has potential to be developed. However, Turner’s notion of all ritual being social drama is an overgeneralisation. Some ritual is traditional, nostalgic and as regards new insights, quite dead. Tribal rituals studies in anthropology were capable of more dynamic interpretation, with rituals solving social disputes, but Turner was not justified to interpret all ritual as explained by this model. It is reasonable to use these dynamic rituals as a model for transformational theatre, but not all theatre is life-enhancing. The concept helps us to evaluate ritual, distinguishing between rituals which reconcile disputes, which affirm identity and community, and which are nostalgic and static.
Turner’s schema provides a social revolution through ritual, which draws both from his Marxist past and his Christian present. His communitas is reminiscent of ‘fellowship’. Turner’s central belief was that ritual has still a central part to play in modern western society, with serious purposes (liminal), and entertainment aims (liminoid, liminal-like). Performances can have serious transformative purpose, challenging, changing hearts and minds and being a part of social reconciliation. Much about Victor Turner has been reworked and honed; but there are serious concepts which still need to be further developed in terms of theatre, ritual and religion, and even education where there is meaning in the idea of threshold. New studies might concentrate on “the subjunctive”, the potential, the might become: using quasi-ceremony as exciting threshold activities may well reduce existing stresses and encourage appropriate forward planning.
When published, a link to the review will be provided here
Monday, 19 January 2009
Revolutionary change in education.
This blog comes at the end of a reading of the works of the anthropologist Victor Turner who engaged with the ideas first of rites of passage (life crises and transitions) and then ritual. He came to see performance today as an evolutionary development from ritual to appease supernatural forces. Now, those forces are seen as psychological forces, no less problematic and no less dangerous.
For Turner, revolutionary change came from ritual, which tackled a breach and found a solution, a Hegelian synthesis. As a Marxist, evolutionary change never brings political progress; it takes direct revolutionary action to overturn the old system and to get rid of old attitudes. There will be a struggle in which blood is metaphorically shed. In his view, ritual is an important mechanism for social change, in that it mobilises whole populations. Calling it ‘social drama’ he broadened the notion of ritual to ceremony and carnival. This interest in ritual caused him to join the Roman Catholic church.
Unfortunately, ritual and carnival can oppose change. The Sussex Bonfire ceremonies such as “Rye Fawkes” perpetuate anti-Catholic rejoicing at a time of cultural tolerance. Ritual can be used to solve social problems; but not all ritual does so and most western ritual does not. In the west, ritual is the problem, not the solution. Reconciliation is not possible so long as the Orange March winds through Belfast or paramilitaries of both sides fire fusillades at the funerals of murderers. It was the grass-roots discussions which dissolved hostilities, Turner’s concept of communitas, that is community positive participation, which made a peace process possible. It is this that provides the revolution, not ritual. When the revolution has taken place, then ritual (performance, participation and publicity) might seal it.
We have long used the language of change in education, whether it be action research, reform, or accountability. The desire for evolutionary change has to face up to the reality of school conservatism, which will return to the old ways as soon as pressure is released. The current period of top-down teacher competency and accountability (as opposed to bottom-up teacher creativity and inspiration) has lasted 20 years since 1988, mostly because that is how new teachers have been trained, and OFSTED has directly or indirectly persuaded those not of this view to leave the profession. These two decades of ‘reform’ have not produced dramatic change, so there are annual post-mortems about standards. Education is heavily structured, with schooling financed by governments, an authority structure, and a rigorous assessment and monitoring system. ‘Progress’ or otherwise, strictly defined, registers on league tables. However there are pressures against these structures both from pupils and teachers, pupils resisting over-authoritarianism, and teachers resisting top-down demands. Schools are judged on achievements at 16, and to a lesser extent on earlier SATs, but the quality of a school requires more than high results. They need to motivate children, add value, and rescue children from deep senses of failure.
Turner's 'liminality', that is the state of being on a threshold, is a bottom-up reassessment of our values and strategies, democratically reached; and communitas is the social partnership process which brings people into positive relationships which encourage change. This encourages debate at its most open-minded, after putting aside status and personal benefit, for the common good. This means putting all perspectives into the melting pot, deciding the mission and vision (no doubt about rescuing desperate children), and then deciding how best to achieve the resulting ambitions, without the distractions of historic agendas and empires. We all see ourselves as at the doorway, the threshold, of a new journey, a crossroads between a fruitful path and a barren policy. The experience of being on that threshold is what we mean by liminality. That gives us a vision of possible futures if we dare to cross over and embrace them. This is exhilarating, but is a counterculture and has its dangers. It exists because it is telling the power in the land that the vision behind the money - that is, education funding - and inspection (that is, policing) is wrong. And, whether Labour or Tory, it has been wrong for some time.
For Turner, revolutionary change came from ritual, which tackled a breach and found a solution, a Hegelian synthesis. As a Marxist, evolutionary change never brings political progress; it takes direct revolutionary action to overturn the old system and to get rid of old attitudes. There will be a struggle in which blood is metaphorically shed. In his view, ritual is an important mechanism for social change, in that it mobilises whole populations. Calling it ‘social drama’ he broadened the notion of ritual to ceremony and carnival. This interest in ritual caused him to join the Roman Catholic church.
Unfortunately, ritual and carnival can oppose change. The Sussex Bonfire ceremonies such as “Rye Fawkes” perpetuate anti-Catholic rejoicing at a time of cultural tolerance. Ritual can be used to solve social problems; but not all ritual does so and most western ritual does not. In the west, ritual is the problem, not the solution. Reconciliation is not possible so long as the Orange March winds through Belfast or paramilitaries of both sides fire fusillades at the funerals of murderers. It was the grass-roots discussions which dissolved hostilities, Turner’s concept of communitas, that is community positive participation, which made a peace process possible. It is this that provides the revolution, not ritual. When the revolution has taken place, then ritual (performance, participation and publicity) might seal it.
We have long used the language of change in education, whether it be action research, reform, or accountability. The desire for evolutionary change has to face up to the reality of school conservatism, which will return to the old ways as soon as pressure is released. The current period of top-down teacher competency and accountability (as opposed to bottom-up teacher creativity and inspiration) has lasted 20 years since 1988, mostly because that is how new teachers have been trained, and OFSTED has directly or indirectly persuaded those not of this view to leave the profession. These two decades of ‘reform’ have not produced dramatic change, so there are annual post-mortems about standards. Education is heavily structured, with schooling financed by governments, an authority structure, and a rigorous assessment and monitoring system. ‘Progress’ or otherwise, strictly defined, registers on league tables. However there are pressures against these structures both from pupils and teachers, pupils resisting over-authoritarianism, and teachers resisting top-down demands. Schools are judged on achievements at 16, and to a lesser extent on earlier SATs, but the quality of a school requires more than high results. They need to motivate children, add value, and rescue children from deep senses of failure.
Turner's 'liminality', that is the state of being on a threshold, is a bottom-up reassessment of our values and strategies, democratically reached; and communitas is the social partnership process which brings people into positive relationships which encourage change. This encourages debate at its most open-minded, after putting aside status and personal benefit, for the common good. This means putting all perspectives into the melting pot, deciding the mission and vision (no doubt about rescuing desperate children), and then deciding how best to achieve the resulting ambitions, without the distractions of historic agendas and empires. We all see ourselves as at the doorway, the threshold, of a new journey, a crossroads between a fruitful path and a barren policy. The experience of being on that threshold is what we mean by liminality. That gives us a vision of possible futures if we dare to cross over and embrace them. This is exhilarating, but is a counterculture and has its dangers. It exists because it is telling the power in the land that the vision behind the money - that is, education funding - and inspection (that is, policing) is wrong. And, whether Labour or Tory, it has been wrong for some time.
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