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Concept
Victor Turner
Summary
Victor Witter Turner (28 May 1920 – 18 December 1983) was a British cultural anthropologist best known for his work on symbols, rituals, and rites of passage. His work, along with that of Clifford Geertz and others, is often referred to as symbolic and interpretive anthropology.
Victor Turner was born in Glasgow, Scotland, son to Norman and Violet Turner. His father was an electrical engineer and his mother a repertory actress, who founded the Scottish National Players. Turner initially studied poetry and classics at University College London.
In 1941, Turner was drafted into World War II, and served as a noncombatant until 1944. During his three years of service he met and married Edith Brocklesby Davis, who was serving during the war as a "land girl". Their five children include scientist Robert Turner, poet Frederick Turner, and Rory Turner, an anthropology professor at Goucher College.
Turner returned to University College in 1946 with a new focus on anthropology. He later pursued graduate studies in anthropology at Manchester University.
Turner worked in Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia) as research officer for the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute. It was through the position that Turner started his lifelong study of the Ndembu people of Zambia. He completed his PhD at University of Manchester in 1955. Like many of the Manchester anthropologists of his time, he also became concerned with conflict. He developed the new concept of social drama in order to account for the symbolism of conflict and crisis resolution among Ndembu villagers.
Turner spent his career exploring rituals. As a professor at the University of Chicago in the late 1950s, Turner began to apply his study of rituals and rites of passage to world religions and the lives of religious heroes. He and his wife converted to Catholicism in 1958.
Turner explored Arnold van Gennep's threefold structure of rites of passage and expanding theories on the liminal phase. Van Gennep's structure consisted of a pre-liminal phase (separation), a liminal phase (transition), and a post-liminal phase (reincorporation).
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