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| omnipoetics:turner [2025/04/02 21:23] – audriana | omnipoetics:turner [2025/04/02 21:50] (current) – [Liminality and Communitas] audriana |
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| From the jump, readers are told that Turner's article "reviews the proceedings of "the first international symposium on ethnopoetics" as gathered by Michel Benamou and Jerome Rothenberg in a special issue of Alcheringa (Benamou 1976) (337). In particular, Turner is focusing on the proposed intersection between ethnography and poetics, focusing on how cultural performances and symbolic expressions come together and can be analyzed. Throughout all the arguments and ideas, Turner's position is how these ideas work into his work on liminality. According to Turner, "In my own technical vocabulary I would see ethnopoetics as a “ liminal” phenomenon. By this I mean that it is in a “ threshold” position, a betwixt-and-between state, like the seclusion phase in a tribal rite of passage in which the novices have been stripped of their antecedent status and have not yet acquired a new one and to which the categories and classifications of their previous sociocultural state have ceased to apply" (341). Finally, one of Turner's final points is that if disciplines and scholars are serious about integrating ethnopoetics into their fields, it would mean taking aspects, like acting and performance, as something that needs to be taken seriously in terms of study. | From the jump, readers are told that Turner's article "reviews the proceedings of "the first international symposium on ethnopoetics" as gathered by Michel Benamou and Jerome Rothenberg in a special issue of Alcheringa (Benamou 1976) (337). In particular, Turner is focusing on the proposed intersection between ethnography and poetics, focusing on how cultural performances and symbolic expressions come together and can be analyzed. Throughout all the arguments and ideas, Turner's position is how these ideas work into his work on liminality. According to Turner, "In my own technical vocabulary I would see ethnopoetics as a “ liminal” phenomenon. By this I mean that it is in a “ threshold” position, a betwixt-and-between state, like the seclusion phase in a tribal rite of passage in which the novices have been stripped of their antecedent status and have not yet acquired a new one and to which the categories and classifications of their previous sociocultural state have ceased to apply" (341). Finally, one of Turner's final points is that if disciplines and scholars are serious about integrating ethnopoetics into their fields, it would mean taking aspects, like acting and performance, as something that needs to be taken seriously in terms of study. |
| ====== Hall of Mirrors ====== | |
| A crucial metaphor used to describe the importance of performance for ethnopoetics is that of a hall of mirrors. At the crux of ethnopoetics is the multiplicity of difference within history. This difference might be imagined, as proposed by Turner, as a hall of magical fun house-esque mirrors. These mirrors all play different roles, “some of which enlarge, others diminish, some distort and some have images from all the others and passes them on transmuted or transmogrified.” This idea is present throughout the Serpent and the Fire anthology, which includes a large breadth of translational choices, from direct translation of one language to another to the act of (transculturation), which reimagines and poeticizes the original work within the new cultural context. Turner specifies, “Within each culture is its own hall of mirrors: the social division of labor, beginning with sex-and-age-role oppositions, is charged with reflexivity, for although we are all members of one another, we are different members, both biologically and culturally.” | |
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| ====== Performative Nature ====== | ====== Liminality and Communitas ====== |
| Although poetry which has not originally intended for oral performance can be considered ethnopoetic. The “reflexive potential [of Ethnopoetics] is actualized most patently in the performative genres” (340). This is because oral performative works are often intended to question the culture they imitate through their very act of imitation. Deeply held societal beliefs and assumptions about humankind can be examined from an outside perspective through the act of performance. Thus, “culture is remirrored by one of its own extensions—ritual or art” (340). In this way, ethnopoetic works act as liminal spaces in their ability to draw people into an in-between where they can examine their own actions and those of others from a third-person perspective. Crucially, Turner claims, “The more we are aware of the multiplicity of Others, the more we become aware of the multiple ‘selves’ we contain, the social roles we have ‘internalized’” (340). | |
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| ====== Communitas ====== | Since ethnopoetics resides in a liminal, or threshold space, ethnopoetic works act as “destabalizing agent... subverting established social constructs” and allow for “a space where humans may escape the socializing processes of performance and existence that is demanded in spaces that dictate social aggrandizement” (Bierdz, Tereszewski 346). As a result of the liminality deeply imbedded in ethnopoetics, one major focus is //communitas//, a shared landscape with “commonalities and a sense of belonging between people who are in liminal spaces (Fisher et. al. 254). This concept involves breaking down boundaries between cultures and dominant cultural narratives to seek intersectionality and new translations of cultural meaning. According to Turner, the //communitas// present in ethnopoetics serves to "make new models from the outpoured cultures of all people—particularly formerly oppressed or colonized kinds of people” (341-342). Within this framework, pieces such as M. NourbeSe Philip's [[omnipoetics:zong|ZONG!]] may be seen as ethnopoetic works, utilizing both literal and metaphorical space to look at a cultural narrative of oppression through an outside perspective. |
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| | ====== Performative Nature ====== |
| | Although poetry not originally intended for oral performance can be considered ethnopoetic, the “reflexive potential [of Ethnopoetics] is actualized most patently in the performative genres” (340). This is because oral performative works are often intended to question the culture they imitate through their very act of imitation. Deeply held societal beliefs and assumptions about humankind can be examined from an outside perspective through the act of performance. Thus, “culture is remirrored by one of its own extensions—ritual or art” (340). In this way, ethnopoetic works act as liminal spaces in their ability to draw people into an in-between where they can examine their own actions and those of others from a third-person perspective. Crucially, Turner claims, “The more we are aware of the multiplicity of Others, the more we become aware of the multiple ‘selves’ we contain, the social roles we have ‘internalized’” (340). |
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| | ====== Hall of Mirrors ====== |
| | A crucial metaphor used to describe the importance of performance for ethnopoetics is that of a hall of mirrors. At the crux of ethnopoetics is the multiplicity of difference within history. This difference might be imagined, as proposed by Turner, as a hall of magical fun house-esque mirrors. These mirrors all play different roles, “some of which enlarge, others diminish, some distort and some have images from all the others and passes them on transmuted or transmogrified.” This idea is present throughout the Serpent and the Fire anthology, which includes a large breadth of translational choices, from direct translation of one language to another to the act of transcreation, a concept further expanded on in [[omnipoetics:brazilwood_poetry_manifesto|Brazilwood Poetry Manifesto]], which reimagines and poeticizes the original work within the new cultural context. Turner specifies, “Within each culture is its own hall of mirrors: the social division of labor, beginning with sex-and-age-role oppositions, is charged with reflexivity, for although we are all members of one another, we are different members, both biologically and culturally” (340). |
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| ====== Works Cited ====== | ====== Works Cited ====== |
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| | https://doi.org/10.1332/204674318X15233473046566 |
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| | https://doi-org.sfproxy.palni.edu/10.18778/2083-2931.09.21 |
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| https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780199766567/obo-9780199766567-0074.xml | https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780199766567/obo-9780199766567-0074.xml |
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| https://therai.org.uk/archives-and-manuscripts/obituaries/victor-turner/ | https://therai.org.uk/archives-and-manuscripts/obituaries/victor-turner/ |
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| | https://www.researchgate.net/publication/362633797_The_everdiminishing_liminal_space_of_being_the_totalizing_subjectification_of_being |
