The liminal effects of social movements: Red guards and the transformation of identity

Pg 380 – “This paper draws on Victor Turner’s notion of liminality (Turner, 1969, 1979) to specify these conditions. I will propose that social movements are liminal phenomena. They separate participants from preexisting structural constraints and give them the freedom and power to remold themselves and society. For those involved, the total effect is a threshold effect-the experience becomes a dividing line in personal histories with immediate and long-term consequences.”

~ So social movements affect personal histories more than just culture and identity alone would. In fact, social movements can replace huge chunks of the influence of culture and identity.

Pg 382-3 – “In Turner’s anthropology of the ritual process, the liminal is the second phase of a three-stage ritual process. The first stage, separation, separates the ritual subject from previous structural conditions.3 The second stage, the liminal, is antistructural, where the ritual subject redefines his/her identity under conditions that have “few or none of the attributes of the past or coming state” (Turner 1969:94). The final stage of aggregation marks the subject’s settling back into the social structure.”

~ This is how liminal effects culture/identity.

Pg 383 – “As an antistructure, a liminal condition entails the suspension of normal structural constraints. In this sense, liminality can be seen as in an inverse relationship with bureaucracy.”

~ So liminality can affect how culture and identities typically form guidelines and restraints for actions. It releases/changes those guidelines and constraints.

Pg 383 – “In contrast, a liminal situation is characterized by freedom, egalitarianism, communion, and creativity.”

~ Instead of constraints this is what it gives.

Pg 386 – “Turner argues that all social processes follow the dialectic of structures and antistructures. If liminal phenomena represent antistructures, then social movements may be conceptualized as antistructural processes in a dialectical relationship with such structural entities as institutionalized politics and bureaucracies.”

~ So my theory is very structured.

Pg 397 – “According to Turner (1969), the liminal is the transformative stage in a ritual process. By separating ritual subjects from existing social structures, the liminal stage of the ritual process endows subjects with the freedom and power to transcend structural constraints and to refashion themselves and society.”

~ Not my theory at all, but interesting all the same.

Yang, G. (2000). The liminal effects of social movements: Red guards and the transformation of identity. Sociological forum, 15(3). Retrieved October 17, 2008 from JSTOR database.