The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure

In The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (1969), anthropologist Victor Turner challenged traditional views of rites of passage. He proposed that these rituals are not merely about maintaining social structure but are fundamentally about social change. Turner argued that rites of passage temporarily remove participants from their social statuses, creating a state of "liminality" where new possibilities can be explored.1

During this liminal phase, participants often experience "communitas," a sense of direct, egalitarian connection with others, which Turner termed "ritual anti-structure". This anti-structure highlights the artificiality of social norms and structures. Turner believed that rituals, by infusing social roles with communitas, serve the common good and human community. He saw ritual and social structure in a dynamic relationship, with ritual emerging to address the limitations of structure.1