Turner's Rumspring An Analysis Of The Rites Of Passage

In most cultures the important transitions in life are birth, puberty, marriage, deadly injury and finally death. These transitions are viewed culturally as initiation rites which demonstrates human growth and development. To celebrate this maturation, societies created the rites of passages to show an individual’s change of state. A French anthropologist named Arnold Van Gennep visions the rite of passage rituals as being separated into three phases; preliminary, liminality, and post liminality. Van Gennep views that the rites of passage develop the idea of how each institution, role and norm form together and establish societies in a steady state; supporting social stability. However, British anthropologist Victor Turner challenges this view

This period is called a Rumspringa. The Rumspringa symbolizes the liminal stage within the rite of passage, where the teenagers experience “a state of lowliness”. According to Turner, to be in a liminal state the individual must experience the lowest position to be honored with a high status in their subculture. (Turner 98). Being liminal entities you appear to have no social identity however, they are seen united as equals within the ritual context. All individuals partaking in the privileges of Rumspringa are placed in this low status. By being uniquely lowly individuals who demonstrate an obedience to their ritual masters (Amish parents) proves their transition to a higher social status by accepting to be baptized by the Amish Church. However, this is one path a teenager may decide. Due to the dissolution of order during liminality, an array of new customs and institutions can be established, such as joining the church beyond the 16 to 21 age range, or a teenager can live in the Amish community but continue to partake in American

By obtaining luxuries such as electronics, automobiles, and electricity creates a social ladder of inequality within modern society. By removing such luxuries allows individuals such as the Amish to remove the “secular distinction of rank and status and develop a homogenized” society where everyone is equal. (Turner 95). This idea of common living is defined as communitas. Communitas is the subjunctive movement that has an existential quality that breaks through the interstices of structure within liminality. An example of this would be the time the Amish teenagers are baptized by the church. The ritual of the baptism serves as a crucial reaffirmation of the moral order of the Amish people. Another difference between structure and communitas is the distinction between secular politics and sacred religion. For example, in the documentary there was an Amish teenage boy with a father that is a preacher, it was assumed that the son would follow in the footsteps of his father. However, very social position within this liminal culture possess sacred characteristics that are acquired during the rites of passage. Holding a higher position such as being a preacher isn’t obtained by the tempers of pride but by the sacredness of humility an individual endures and that is obtained through the liminal period. Communitas gains its meaning through the deconstruction of a normative