For
this post I have decided to investigate how Victor Turner’s idea of “liminality” plays
a part in all of our lives as college students as we engage in various rituals
for rites of passage into adulthood. Turner points out three stages that occur
during the rite of passage, when one person moves forward in the life cycle. If
we look at going to college as a ritualistic rite of passage for many Western
children, Turner’s three stages align nicely with our “before, during, and
after” of college life.
The
first stage, separation, represents our pre-adult life. We are isolate from the
“real world” as many people say. As children, we are not subject to the same
stressors and pressures as adults. We may have a host of our pre-teen or
teenage problems (I sure did), but there are countless things that I did not
need to worry about that my mother and father did. The third stage (I’m going
out of order here so that I can talk about liminality in more depth so bear
with me), according to Turner is integration. This involves a reintroduction
into social life, an incorporation of your values and behavior into that which
is expected for normal societal beings. Pretty straightforward.
If
we use Turner’s stages to look at rites of passage and the transition from kid
to adult, there is a very important phase known as “liminality.” An individual
during this stage has begun the transition and is no longer associated with the
beginning or end points. This temporary stage is a preparation for the next
stage of life; opening up the mind to be totally reorganized by the integration
stage. I believe that college life is a perfect example of liminality as
compared to adult and child life.
Liminality
differs from normal life in several ways, which I will discuss in relation to
college life. College is transitional rather than a state. College life, no
matter how much we would like it to be, is temporary and will end eventually.
College is also extremely homogeneous in comparison to the rest of our
population. At Wake Forest (regardless of how much diversity we have) we are
all from relatively similar backgrounds
and are all of a relatively similar
age. There is also a large amount of equality and a lack of status. As students
we are involved in different clubs and organizations and live vastly different
lives, but in the eyes of the university we are all considered equal – as students. (Although the fact that I can’t
get into the business school after dark leads me to believe otherwise; but that’s
another matter…)
Another
major characteristic, according to Turner, of liminality, is a lack of property.
As a college student, I do not have property. At Wake Forest we are required to
live on campus for three years. During these first three years, all that I own
has to fit into a 15’ by 11’ room. The furniture is not mine, and I might even
have to share this space with another student. Furthermore, I cannot do
whatever I please with my room. Resident Advisers regularly check our rooms to
ensure that we are not engaging in one of the many violations.
Turner
also argues that liminality can be characterized by acceptance of pain and
suffering.While there are some parts of Wake Forest that I have to literally
suffer through (for example, the three or four hours after eating at The Pit),
our pain and suffering is less physical and more mental. We work long hours and
are subject to large amounts of stress, both social and academic. Finally, and arguably most importantly, we have developed a sense of communitas during our time at Wake Forest. By being in between two concrete stages, where status and other aspects of real life are well defined, we create strong bonds with others experiencing the same ambiguity as we are. Bonds with college friends last lifetimes, and are often more unique and deeper than many other relationships we will encounter during other times in our lives (usually).
There
are several aspects of Turner’s liminality that do not exactly apply to college
life, in my opinion. I don’t necessarily believe that we live in anonymity, and I certainly don't think that we - as college students - have a particular disregard for our personal appearance (except maybe during finals week). I’d love to see if any of you have any ideas
of how these characteristics apply to our life at Wake!
Liminality during college prepares us to adjust to the shock that will come with being adults. During our time at Wake Forest we are slowly integrated into adult life by being exposed in small intervals to new types of activities that we will encounter in the "real world" - such as paying rent, meeting deadlines, practicing for job interviews, etc... College life parallels wonderfully with Turner's notions of liminality.
I really liked your blog post about liminality at Wake. I had been thinking about how Turner's theory would apply more directly to our university while in class and you really brought it all together! I completely agree that college in the western world stands as a clear example of a liminal stage. I agree with the characteristics that you observed were present in college life as a liminal stage, in that it is transitional, temporary, homogeneous, the lack of property, acceptance of pain and suffering, and the sense of communitas.
ReplyDeleteThe acceptance of pain and suffering is one of the first characteristics that I associated with college when we were discussing these traits during class. You mentioned how most of our pain and suffering is mental and emotional, but I would go as far as to argue that it is physical in a way. We experience extreme lack of sleep, some killer headaches, most likely a terrible diet if we eat on campus, and possibly limited exercise due to the amount of time we study. Not only that, but we are willing (or forced) to drive to campus on those snowy days when main campus doesn’t close (I’m only half joking). We experience a lot of mental, emotional, and arguably physical suffering by being students at a college, as you pointed out above.
You also showed that not all of these characteristics of a liminal state apply to college life; namely anonymity and a disregard for our personal appearance. I agree that at Wake Forest our classes are so small that we have a name and the majority, if not all, of our professors know our names and use them often. However, I wonder if this would be different at a larger university. I know even at Wake, my one large lecture class in biology was much more faceless than any other class. If most classes were that size or approached that way, then possibly anonymity would apply if we were never called or recognized by name in our classes.
The final thought that your blog post brought up for me (with the help of Duncan’s post being right above) was the idea or possibility of liminal stages within liminal stages. Duncan’s post above discusses liminality within Greek life, which occurs within college life. Does this mean that liminal stages can occur within other liminal stages? This also brought about questions of does a specific year in college count as a liminal stage? I don’t have the answers to these questions, but merely a starting point. I think that there can be liminal stages within a larger liminal stage, however when discussing the stage that appears to be within the other, we must recognize that this is using a different framework and discusses the first as a state rather than a transition at that point in time. So does it come down to the three stages of liminality being relative to a certain liminal stage? Liminality does occur within Greek life, and within college life, but we must look at the characteristics and stages one at a time, I don’t think that we are able to observe college life and Greek life as liminal stages at the same point in time.
Like I said before awesome post! It really got me thinking about Turner’s liminal theory and about possible broader applications!
Nice discussion, and the issue of liminality within liminality suggests more complex potential structures than the tripartite one laid out by Van Gennep and Turner.
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