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3932 rite of passage
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rite of passage
Rodanthi Tzanelli
The term rite of passage was first used in
anthropology to encapsulate rituals that symbo-
lize the transition of an individual or a group
from one status to another, or to denote the
passage of calendrical time, but soon it was
embraced in other disciplines. The concept
was developed by the Durkheimian anthropolo-
gist Arnold Van Gennep in Les Rites de passage
(1909), in which he explored the nature of cer-
emonies that mark personal or collective
changes of identity (childbirth, puberty, mar-
riage, motherhood, and death), as well as collec-
tive celebrations of seasonal change (Easter,

harvest). Van Gennep identified three phases in
these rites: (1) separation, when the individual
or the group is distanced from their former
identities; (2) liminality, the phase in between
two conditions (the one from which the indivi-
dual/group departs and the one which they will
enter); and (3) reaggregation (or incorporation),
the final stage in which the individual/group is
readmitted to society as bearer of new status.
Because rites of passage belong to sacred time
(not the profane of everyday life), their perfor-
mance is formalized. The initiate(s) are placed in
a symbolically subordinate position vis-à-vis
those who have been initiated (elders, married,
mothers) and have to go through elaborate
‘‘trials’’ (isolation, humiliation, fasting) before
they are accepted back into the community.
The flexibility of Van Gennep’s theory
led to its implementation and use in a vast
array of contexts in different human sciences
(anthropology, sociology, history). Van Gennep
influenced two of the most important twentieth-
century symbolic anthropologists, Victor Turner
and Mary Douglas. In The Ritual Process: Struc-
ture and Anti-Structure (1966), Turner illu-
strated the significance of liminality as a
dangerous phase for the initiate(s) and the whole
community, which both challenges and sustains
social order. This idea reappeared in Mary
Douglas’s Purity and Danger: An Analysis of
the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (1966) in a
more structuralist fashion. Douglas regarded
liminality as a point that negotiates two oppos-
ing structural situations: her analysis of ‘‘dirt’’ as
a moral sign that enables societies to establish
boundaries between social categories (e.g., clean
and unclean, good and evil, dangerous and safe)
echoes Van Gennep’s tripartite schema of the
rite of passage.
One of the problems highlighted about the
concept is its inherent vagueness, because it
invites social scientists to construct almost
every transitional stage as a rite of passage. Van
Gennep also stressed that not all rites of passage
retain their tripartite structure: one phase may
be ritualistically exaggerated at the expense of
the other two (e.g., baptism as incorporation
into society). Again, this led to confusion con-
cerning the classification of transitional rituals as
rites of separation, liminality, or incorporation
(e.g., marriage can be all three). The concept of
liminality, however, found extensive use in
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rite/ritual 3933
sociology, especially in tourism and leisure stu-
dies. Unfortunately, its association with ambi-
guity, indeterminacy, and displacement also
invited its abuse by ‘‘cultural theorists’’ who
are often not informed of its origins.
SEE ALSO: Consumption, Tourism and; Dur-
kheim, Émile; Rite/Ritual; Structuralism
REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED
READINGS
Bell, C. (1995) Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. Oxford
University Press, New York.
Diver, T. F. (1998) Understanding the Transformative
Power of Ritual. Westview Press, Boulder, CO.
Douglas, M. (1966) Purity and Danger: An Analysis
of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. Routledge &
Kegan Paul, London.
Eliade, M. (1994) Rites and Symbols of Initiation:
The Mysteries of Birth and Rebirth. Spring,
Putnam, CO.
Turner, V. (1966) The Ritual Process: Structure and
Anti-Structure. Cornell University Press, Ithaca,
NY.
Turner, V. (1975) Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors:
Symbolic Action in Human Society. Cornell Uni-
versity Press, Ithaca, NY.
Van Gennep, A. (1960 [1909]) The Rites of Passage.
University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
rite/ritual
Aldo Natale Terrin
The field of ritual studies has expanded drama-
tically over the past 20 years. Rituals are ana-
lyzed in anthropology, sociology of religion,
religious studies, and theology, and also in the
study of literature, philosophy, theater, political
science, and education, especially from the per-
spective of performance theory (Schechner
1977). Many disciplines have taken different
theoretical approaches to this broad and com-
plex topic, and thus a great variety of defini-
tions have been proposed, no single one of
which is adequate. For present purposes ritual
will be defined as a formal and symbolic beha-
vior that leads to the creation or recreation of