class reading # 3 - Kim Robinson

3. This semester one of our readings came from Victor Turner’s The Ritual Process. I had read excerpts from this book many of times throughout my college career between the classes I’ve had with Dr. Redick and other papers I’ve done for anthropology classes. One of the main arguments in the book is that people go through three stages when participating in rites of passage. He notes how during these rituals the participant goes through separation, transition, and reincorporation. One of the main and most interesting stages of the process is transition, or as Turner calls in liminality. In this stage the participant is no longer apart of the society he belonged to and is in an in between stage. This process is important when discussing primal religions because rites of passage are common features within them. Often these religions use rites of passage to mark a certain age or certain transition into another part of life. These stages are also important to me because during my time in study abroad classes with Dr. Redick I got to experience this stage. On both the Camino and the AT we had to remove ourselves from everything and everyone we knew and partake in things we had never done, experience things that we wouldn’t be able to experience in everyday life. It’s interesting to see how themes like these, themes that I read about in books and that have been studied many times over by religious scholars and anthropologist alike appears in our everyday life. Something that is studied so intricately also occurs in my life at certain points. Also it’s cool to think that I’ve experienced something that many others will never get the opportunity to feel and experience.