Egalitarian Dynamics

Bruce Kapferer is Honorary Professor University College London and Professor Emeritus, University of Bergen, where he is Director of the project Egalitarianism: Forms, Processes, Comparisons, which is supported by an ERC Advanced Grant. His recent publications include Democracy’s Paradox: Populism and its Contemporary Crisis, co-edited with Dimitrios Theodossopoulos (Berghahn Books, 2019).

“This is a very rich collection combining theoretical relevance with a wide spectrum of empirical material. The reader is taken on a fascinating journey including themes that range from blood brotherhood rituals in Rwanda to the symbolic power of Olympic games as complex performance systems, from the ambivalence of music intermezzos in Africa and America to the brave new world of the US in a post-capitol uprising world.” • Harald Wydra, University of Cambridge“This is an outstanding and magisterial treatment of the work of Victor Turner on liminality and ritual, structure and communitas (or anti-structure) and of his theory’s past and present significance and indeed of its future potential.” • Donald Nonini, University of North Carolina

• List of IllustrationsIntroduction: Liminality: Structure/Anti-Structure and Egalitarian DynamicsBruce KapfererPart I: Liminality and EthnographyChapter 1. The Pivoting of the Sacred: Arnold Van Gennep's Patio-Temporality of the LiminalBjorn ThomassenChapter 2. The Parable of the Foot Bridge: Creativity and Change in the In-BetweenPaul StollerChapter 3. Searching for My Brother: Liminality and Blood Brotherhood in RwandaChristopher C. TaylorChapter 4. The Rigours of the Liminal: Effecting the Real in Theatrical LabourDaniel Scherer and Martin HolbraadChapter 5. Sacrifice, Sovereignty and the Dynamics of Structure and Anti-StructureRohan BastinPart II: Multiple Meanings of CommunitasChapter 6. Communitas and Practice in the Baltimore Rhythm FestivalRory TurnerChapter 7. Insight Meditation: Liminality Without ExcitementWard KeelerChapter 8. The Unbearable Weight of Music: The IntermezzoSteven M. FriedsonPart III: Liminoid Spaces and the Politics of LiminalityChapter 9. Mahishi’s Rage: Communitas and Protest at Sabarimala, KeralaDinesan VadakkiniyilChapter 10. Weaving Value in the Liminal Space of the Istanbul BazaarPatricia ScalcoChapter 11. Vicissitudes of Liminality in Complex Performance SystemsJohn MacAloonChapter 12. France and its PurgatoryAndre IteanuChapter 13. Liminality and Communitas: The Making of Refugees in SwitzerlandMarina GoldChapter 14. Open Access and the Subjunctive Mood in Scholarly PublishingKirsten BellChapter 15. How Book Haram's 'Liminal' Child Witches and Child Soldiers Challenge the Capitalist StateCaroline IfekaChapter 16. Immanence and Process: Between 1984 and Brave New World, The Trump TransmutationBruce Kapferer and Roland KapfererPart IV: ExtensionsChapter 17. Finding Likeness: Neural Plasticity and Ritual ExperienceRobert TurnerAfterword: Liminality - Contemplating the Hypothetically Potent Conjunction of the Social and the PhysicalDon HandelmanReferencesIndex