DRUMS OF AFFLICTION: A STUDY OF RELIGIOUS PROCESSES AMONG THE NDEMBU OF ZAMBIA

Turner, Victor Witter

ISBN 10: 080149205X / ISBN 13: 9780801492051

Published by Cornell Univ Pr, US, 1981

About this Item

Book Condition: Very Good with minimal shelf wear marks and slight tropical speckling to Page Edges. Otherwise, clean, clear text in tightly bound volume. No internal inscriptions, markings or other stains. xiii, 326 p. 13 plates, illus., tables, map. 23 cm. Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 1 inches. Weight: 14.1 ounces. While at Stanford University, Victor Turner wrote The Drums of Affliction: A Study of Religious Processes among the Ndembu (1968). Turner shared the view that social order depends on rituals and ceremonial performances with Emile Durkheim. And he followed Edward Sapir's lead in asserting that culture is a "changing entity, influenced by 'root paradigms,' that is, by axiomatic frames, or deep myths, that propel and transform people and groups at critical moments" Turner agreed with Freud that studying disturbances in patterns offers better insight than does observing normal conditions. He found Kurt Lewin's notion of "social fields" useful in his processual models as was Alfred Schutz' phenomenological sociology which suggested that culture was a constantly negotiated set of meanings. In his dissertation, published as Schism and Continuity in African Society (1957), he introduced the concept of social dramas, which he elaborated on in later works. Social dramas exist as a result of the conflict that is inherent in societies. Social dramas are the "public episodes of tensional irruption" (1974:33). He also refers to them as "units of aharmonic or disharmonic process, arising in conflict situations" (1974:37). Based on his fieldwork among the Ndembu, Turner (1974) asserted that social dramas have "four main phases of public action, accessible to observation" (p. 38). The phases are breach, crisis, redressive action, and reintegration. The first phase is "signalized by the public, overt breach or deliberate nonfulfillment of some crucial norm regulating the intercourse of the parties" (ibid.). Once a breach occurs "a phase of mounting crisis supervenes" in which the breach widens and extends the separation between the parties. The crisis stage has "liminal characteristics, since it is a threshold between more or less stable phases of the social process" (Turner, 1974:39). The third phase of redressive action occurs to limit the spread of the crisis with "certain adjustive and redressive mechanisms . . . [which] are swiftly brought into operation by leading or structurally representative members of the disturbed social system" (ibid.). Turner contributed methodologically to the study of ritual symbols. He introduced the term multivocality to indicate that one symbol may stand for many things. As a result of the polysemous symbols, he suggested a triarchic approach to the study of meaning in ritual symbols. The meaning of symbols must incorporate the exegetical (i.e., indigenous) meaning, the operational meaning and the positional meaning. The exegetical meaning is obtained by "questioning indigenous informants about observed ritual behavior" (Turner, 1967:50). The operational meaning comes from observing what is done with the symbol, the structure and composition of the group that handles the symbol and the affective qualities of the handling of the symbol. The operational meaning also takes into account those groups that are excluded from interacting with the symbol. "The positional meaning of a symbol derives from its relationship to other symbols in a totality, a Gestalt, whose elements acquire their significance from the system as a whole" (Turner, 1967:51). Turner considered himself a comparative symbologist, which suggests he valued his contributions to the study of ritual symbols. It is in the closely related study of ritual processes that he had the most impact. The most important contribution Turner made to the field of anthropology is his work on liminality and communitas. Believing the liminal stage to be of "crucial importance" in the ritual process, Turner explored the idea of liminality more seriously.

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: DRUMS OF AFFLICTION: A STUDY OF RELIGIOUS PROCESSES AMONG THE NDEMBU OF ZAMBIA
• Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr, US
• Publication Date: 1981
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 080149205X
• ISBN 13: 9780801492051
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: Revised Edition.
• Condition: Very Good
• Dimensions: 8.5W x 5.4H x 1D inches 8.5 inches width by 5.4 inches height by 1 inches depth
• Weight: 14.1 ounces