Turner, Victor Witter (1920–1983)

Scottish-born US social anthropologist who studied the Ndembu people of Zambia. His book Schism and Continuity in an African Society 1957 describes how social structure and conflict in certain social relationships gives rise to ‘social dramas’.

In The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual 1967, The Ritual Process 1969, and other works, he explored the complexities of symbolism in ritual. This led on to his developing the concept of ‘communitas’, a bonding social relationship that occurs in ‘liminality’. Liminality occurs during changes in an individual's, or group's, social status and cultural or psychological state; for example, during rites of passage and on pilgrimages. These concepts are further elaborated in articles collected in Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society 1974.