Living the In-Between with Victor Turner's The Ritual Process: The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, Victor Turner

Abstract:Victor Turner's The Ritual Process, published in 1970, spoke to its time. The social movements of the late 1960s and 1970s identified with Turner's idea that they were neither marginal nor deviant, but liminal elements in a procession through periods of structure and anti-structure. More than this, Turner argued that times of transition are privileged and generative for individuals and societies. Most recently, the analysis of liminality in The Ritual Process is relevant to considering America and its pandemic experience. Thinking about thresholds suggests how COVID's tragedy is an opportunity to see America anew.