Turner Symbolic Anthropology

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Symbolic or Interpretive Anthropology

1960s1970s general reevaluation of culturalanthropology as a scientific enterprise

From function to meaning

away from materialist theories towards idealist

theories

shift toward issues of culture and interpretation and

away from grand theories

increased emphasis on the way in which individual

actions creatively shape culture

Greater emphasis on meaning in definitions of culture


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Symbolic anthropology: not a tightly organizedor clearly bounded school...

a loosely-conceived project of a variety ofanthropologists of varied intellectualantecedents who see the decoding of public

symbols as being the key activity ofanthropological analysis...

three main theoretical sources:

Durkheimian sociology Sapir and emic theory

psychoanalytic theory (Freud, Jung, Rheim,

Betelheim)


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Raymond Firth Meyer Fortes

Victor Turner Mary Douglas

Sherry B. Ortner Monica Wilson

Gregory Bateson Gilbert LewisBarbara Babcock Paul Rabinow

Renato Rosaldo Barbara Meyerhoff

Terence S. Turner Milton Singer

Maurice Bloch Robert A. Paul

Marilyn Strathern James Fernandez

SYMBOLIC ANTHROPOLOGISTS


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Since symbolic anthropology is not an organized

school, there are no hard-and-fast dogmas or

principles

Most symbolicists would however agree on these two

points:

culture is, fundamentally, a symbolic system and so

analysis of cultural symbols provides the natural

point of entre into a cultural universe

If culture is symbolic then it follows that it is used

to create and convey meanings since that is the

purpose of symbols. If meanings are the end products

of culture then understanding culture requires

understanding the meanings of its creators and users


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Believing, with Max Weber, that man

is an animal suspended in webs of

significance he himself has spun, I take

cultures to be those webs, and theanalysis of it to be therefore not an

experimental science in search of law,

but an interpretive one in search ofmeaning. (Geertz 1973:5)


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Victor TurnerScottish social anthropologist, 19201983

student of Max Gluckman at Manchester

1950-54 fieldwork among the Ndembu ofZambia

early work in conflict structuralismSchism and continuity in an African society[1957]...

later work in pilgrimage theory, experientialanthropology, and performance theory

but central career interest = symbolic

anthropology


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The forest of symbols*(1967)

The drums of affliction(1968)

Chihamba: the white spirit(1969)

The ritual process: structure and anti-structure(1969)

Dramas, fields, and metaphors: symbolic action in humansociety (1975)

Process, performance, and pilgrimage: a study in

comparative symbology(1979)Blazing the trail: way marks in the exploration of symbols

(with Edith Turner)(1992)

* collected early papers, including Symbols in Ndembu ritual [reading for

this course]

VICTOR TURNERKEY MONOGRAPHS IN SYMBOLIC ANTHROPOLOGY


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ZIMBABWE

MOZAMBIQUE

NAMIBIA

ANGOLA CONGO-KINSHASA

MA-LAWI

TANZANIA

NDEMBU


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CENTRAL BANTU

(WEST)

MONGO

LUBA

NORTHWESTERNBANTU EQUATORIALBANTU

SOUTH-WESTERN

BANTU

MIDDLE ZAMBEZI BANTU


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typical society of the Matrilineal Belt: matrilineal descent

virilocal postmarital residence

shifting cultivation on poor savanna land

impermanent villages:

new villages continually reforming

ambitious headmen seek to attract villagers away

from their present headmen (big man politicalprocess)

individual continually being pulled in opposingdirections by conflicting matrilineal loyalties and tiesbased on Fa-So relationship

lots of ritual Lots

NDEMBU


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Social dramas

In Schism and Continuity in African Society (1957)

Based on his fieldwork among the NdembuSocial dramas were recurrent units of social life

exist as a result of the conflict that is inherent in

societies.

social dramas have "four main phases of public

action, accessible to observation"

breach,crisis,

redressive action, and

reintegration.


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The first phase is "signalized by the public, overt breach ordeliberate nonfulfillment of some crucial norm regulating the

intercourse of the parties" (ibid.).

Once a breach occurs "a phase of mountingcrisis supervenes"

in which the breach widens and extends the separation betweenthe 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

Social dramas


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The redressive phase is the most liminal because it is in the

middle of the crisis and the resolution.

It is in this phase that the liminal ritual may be enacted toresolve the crisis and provide an opportunity for the final phase of

reintegration to occur.

The reintegration phase involves the resolution of the conflict by

reintegrating the disturbed group into society or by the "socialrecognition and legitimization of irreparable schism between the

contesting parties"

this four-phase model fits into van Gennep's phases of rites of

passage.

Breach and crisis correspond to van Gennep's separation phase,

redress aligns with the transition phase of rites of passage and

reintegration represents van Gennep's incorporation phase


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Arnold van Gennep


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MUKANDA

Ndembu circumciserswith knives

Photos fromVictor Turner:Mukanda: the

rite of circum-

cision. In: TheForest ofSymbols


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Gate to mukandabush. Childhood clothes left on gate


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Novices

daubedwith clay


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LEFT: hut where novices sleep in

the mukandabush BELOW: iron pot in whicnovices porridge is cooked


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Novices receiving instruction from elders


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Masked figure (Chizaluki) representing the authority of the ancestors


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Last day ofmukanda:

initiates don

new clothes

and dance in

public for first

time as men


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RITUAL SYMBOLSTurner not concerned with all possible symbolism. All

social groups have some symbolism, down to couplesand dyads. Turner is mainly concerned with cultural

symbols or (in his term) ritual symbols

Ritual symbols = a small number of objects whichhave more or less generally shared meanings within acommunity of interpretation (culture)

Milk Tree for Ndembu

Cross for Christians

Norwegian flag for Norwegians

wedding garland for Greeks


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PROPERTIES OF DOMINANT RITUAL SYMBOLS1. CONDENSATION: Many things & actions arerepresented in a single iconic formationNon-literate people have every incentive to economize on

their use of information storing messages. Since all

knowledge must be incorporated in the stories and rituals

which are familiar to the living generation, it is of immense

advantage if the same verbal categories, with their

corresponding objects, can be used for multiple purposes.Edmund Leach, Ritualization in Man, in relation to

conceptual and social development. Royal Society of

London. Philosophical Transactions. Series B. 251:403-08.

1966


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PROPERTIES OF DOMINANT RITUAL SYMBOLS

2. UNIFICATION: Many disparate significata areinterconnected & unified by virtue of the

common possession of certain analogousqualities

analogy = the mechanism whereby many

significata are able to be condensed inone dominant symbol


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PROPERTIES OF DOMINANT RITUAL SYMBOLS3. POLARIZATION: The symbol typically

possesses two distinct poles of meaning, onenormative (moral rules of society) and the othersensory (natural and physiological process)

All that is quintessentially Ndembu is

transmitted from mother to child, and so thedominant symbol of cohesion and continuity

is symbolized by milk and the female breastThe sensory pole is gross and may be

expected to arouse emotions (breast, penis,blood, semen, tears)


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PROPERTIES OF DOMINANT RITUAL SYMBOLSPolarization = the linkage between the consciousor ideological aspects of symbols and theemotional aspects...

e.g. why certain acts (profanation, incest,shedding of blood) instantly trigger emotionalresponses

This linkage is clearly a learned response

(behavior)TURNER: criticizes Sapir & psychoanalytically oriented writers forignoring the ideological pole in favor of the emotional


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PROPERTIES OF DOMINANT RITUAL SYMBOLS4. POLYVALENCE Dominant symbols do

not just have one

meaning (A = B) but are

invariably polyvalent or

polysemic, and link

into many domains of

the culture and at avariety of levels


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DECODING RITUAL SYMBOLS


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external form andobservable

characteristicsinterpretations of

ritual specialists &lay persons

significant contextsworked out by the

anthropologist

Ritual symbols can be decoded by triangulatingbetween three main bodies of information:


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interpretations ofritual specialists &

lay persons


anthropologist

e.g. dominant symbol usedin girls puberty rite, the

latex exuded by a particulartree = milk = fertility = mo-therhood = the continuityof lineages in a matrilin-eal society = the unity &equality of all Ndembu


SIGNIFICATA

operationalmeaning


characteristics

exegetical

Positional


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ARROW: Diplorrhyncus condylocarpon, the Milk Tree


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A `milk tree' growing in the

compound of a Senior Chief in

southern Zambia. Regarded as

feminine by the inhabitants ofthe compound, the milk tree

twines as a palpable dependent

on its deciduous `masculine'

host.Many Bantu peoples strongly

associated this tree with

womanhood because of the

thick white, milk-like sapwhich the live wood exudes

when cut. the blood-red sap of

the so-called `


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A fresh cut in the milk tree showing the milky white sap

that gives the tree its common name


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A fresh, bright scarlet cut on a `blood tree' in Kangaba, Mali

marked that wood as masculine


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lay persons


anthropologist


Get the official andthe lay perspective:

document anypossiblelayering ofmeanings,from exoteric toesoteric

operationalmeaning


characteristics

exegetical

Positional


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lay persons


anthropologist


in some specificritual contexts, MilkTree =

unity ofwomen

the noviceherself

loss of childby mother

operationalmeaning


characteristics

exegetical

Positional


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lay persons


anthropologist

classic contrast between

what people sayand what they doe.g., despite the ide-ology of Ndembu unity,actually the Milk


Tree implies certaincleavages in

Ndembusociety

in some specific ritualcontexts, Milk Tree =

unity of women

the noviceherself

loss of child bymother

operationalmeaning


characteristics

exegetical

Positional


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...in the Nkanga ritual, each person or group in successivecontexts, sees the milk tree only as representing her ortheir own specific interests and values at those times.

However the anthropologist, who has previously made astructural analysis of Ndembu society, isolating itsorganizational principles, and distinguishing its groups andrelationships, has no particular bias and can observe the

real interconnection and conflict between groups andpersons. What is meaningless for an actor playing aspecific role may well be highly significant for an observerand analyst of the total system.

On these grounds, therefore, I consider it legitimateto include within the total meaning of a dominant ritualsymbol, aspects of behavior associated with it which theactors themselves are unable to interpret, and indeed ofwhich they may be unaware...Victor Turner, Symbols in Ndembu ritual

Erockson & Murphy 2001: 364


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By including esoteric meanings, Turner departsfrom earlier theorists of symbolism, for whom

only the exoteric meanings (shared by everyone)were truly public symbolism (Nadel, Wilson)

But esoteric meanings are a significant part of

most knowledge systems...are particularly clear in Central African initiationsystems...

at various points in initiation ceremony, the noviceis presented symbolically encoded information...

memorized by rote much of the symbolism isundisclosed & will never be formally disclosed


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however even by the end of the bush school, somenovices will have figured out by context, or byrecognizing an image presented earlier in a song

learnt later

those who show a talent for grasping the moreelusive meanings become the officiating priests,witchdoctors, and bush school instructors of futuregenerations

thus the populace sorts itself out in various strataof intellectual and/or spiritual depth

most people content to live in a universe ofsigns and symbols whose meanings areknown to others, but not them

a self-selected few become guardians of the

societys symbolic resources


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OTHER KEY CONCEPTS IN TURNERS

APPROACH TO RITUAL SYMBOLISM1. liminality extensive elaboration of van

Genneps notion of liminality in rites of passage

2. communitas & structure structure inherently

hierarchical & liminality inherently

communal/egalitarian


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Turner Symbolic Anthropology

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