Communitas
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Turner's concept, denoting intense feelings of social togetherness and belonging, often in connection with rituals. In communitas, people stand together "outside" society, and society is strengthened by this. The concept is in many ways the opposite of Marx's alienation or Durkheim's anomie, and is closely related to the latter's ideas about the "sacred" (vs. the "profane").

"Communitas as a social form alternates with "normal" social structure, and is, according to Victor Turner's theories, not limited to the liminal phase in rites de passage. [...] [Many social] phenomena are difficult to place within van Gennep's rites de passage model of separation, liminality and reintegration, [but] may more naturally be considered a form of "anti-structure", alternating with normal social structure. Turner detached the phenomena liminality and communitas from the model for transitional rituals (Turner 1969). The two social models exist simultaneously in a society, and no normal society can function adequately without this dialectic with communitas (Turner 1967:129). The alternation between the two states follows successively and is enforced naturally."
(Definition quoted from: Eggen, Øyvind: Troens Bekjennere: Kontinuitet og endring i en lęstadiansk menighet, translated by Finn Sivert Nielsen.)


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For texts concerned with liminality on AnthroBase, click here:
http://www.anthrobase.com/Browse/Thm/L/liminality.htm