(no subject)

[pozorvlak]

An anthropologist friend once remarked to me that university meets precisely the anthropological definition of a coming-of-age ritual.

• There is some form of ceremony to mark the start of the ritual.
• For the duration of the ritual, the initiates are separated from the mass of the people, and allowed an unusual degree of license to do foolish and/or antisocial things.
• Periodically, the initiates are given tests of strength, stamina, cunning, ability to solve differential equations, or some other desirable quality.
• At the end of the ritual, there is another ceremony, to mark the initiates' re-integration with society at large as adults.

This kind of thing, she went on to elaborate, is what she really likes about anthropology; the tension between the similarity and diversity of all people. Coming-of-age rituals the world over exhibit the same general patterns, but their expressions vary enormously. Similarly, almost every society has some notion of kinship, but the precise details vary greatly from society to society.

This particular example prompts a few questions, though:

1. 18 seems rather late, and 3-4 years seems rather long, for a coming-of-age ritual. What's the distribution of age and length on these things? Is there any correlation between the technological level of a society and the length or time of its coming-of-age ritual?
2. Off the top of my head, the proportion of people attending university in the UK is a little under half: I'm guessing it's similar in most other industrialised countries. So what's the analogous ritual for the non-university-attending classes? School? How does this play out in families where the children attended university but not the parents? And can increasing university attendance (now, and historically) tell us anything more general about the spread and evolution of rituals?
3. Do other societies have the equivalent of postgrads or mature students?

Comments

[jackalopemonger.livejournal.com]

By that definition, having a job meets the anthropological definition of a ritual:

ceremony at the start of the ritual = job application and interview
separation from the masses and license to do foolish things = life in the cubicles
periodic tests of strength, cunning, etc. = quarterly reviews of performance
another ceremony to mark re-integration = going-away party

The given definition of a ritual seems a little too ambiguous...

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

Quite possibly it could be considered as some sort of ritual, but we're specifically talking about coming-of-age rituals. I don't think anyone would consider that leaving a job is a mark of adulthood. And does cubicle life give you license to do foolish things? I'd have thought quite the opposite. The kind of thing I'm thinking of is "while my client admits to knocking off the policeman's helmet, m'lud, he wishes it to be taken into account that it was on the night before the Oxford versus Cambridge Boat Race"*.

* I've been reading a lot of PG Wodehouse lately. I very much doubt you'd get away with that nowadays.

[jackalopemonger.livejournal.com]

And does cubicle life give you license to do foolish things? I'd have thought quite the opposite.
I was thinking of:



I guess you'd be hard-pressed to consider leaving a job a coming-of-age ritual, although I'd say that finishing one's first job is definitely a milestone of sorts. On the other hand, I've never really felt my undergraduate experience to be a coming-of-age experience, either.

And where does one draw the line of the end of the ritual? Many people I know go straight from undergraduate studies into graduate school, into a postdoctoral research position. Each stage is a commitment building directly off the previous accomplishments.

Also, great icon above. Hooray sceince!