Identity, Coming of Age, and Ritual Practice Notes

Identity

  • Identity is a social position, a collection of constructed relationships with others.
  • Identities are socially constructed, engage the material world, and are changeable.
  • Dates mentioned: 1985, 2010, 2005
  • Identities, once created, are communicated, learned, and reinterpreted.
  • The “big hair” identity in the 1980s was accompanied by androgynous dress, shared by people of all genders and ages.
  • Wide access to the identity was communicated broadly by music television shows like MTV. MTV’s video jockeys started in 1983; Joan Jett's popularity peaked around 1981.
  • Ganguru is part of Harajuku style. Young, single Japanese women use fashion to comment on their position outside traditional society.
  • Lolita’s dress like the dolls in the shops in which they work.
  • Some invoke American “hippies” and others enact fantasy themes from computer gaming.

The Self

  • The “self” is a basic human construct encompassing body, spirit, and perhaps other things.
  • The structure of the self is habitual and perceived as natural, rarely questioned.
  • Western Mind-Body Dualism:
    • Mind
    • Body
  • Gahuku-Gama in the Highlands of New Guinea:
    • Do not possess mind-body dualism.
    • There is no strong idea of individualism.
    • Every member of the group is considered part of the same multipart body.
    • Reference to Kenneth E. Read’s The High Valley (1980).
  • Sometimes one’s self includes more than one spirit.
  • The Bororo of Brazil:
    • Are matrilineal.
    • Married men live in their mother-in-law’s longhouse.
    • At maturity, men gain a bird spirit, which drives them to hunt and fish, and is kept by their wives as pets.
    • The Bororo know themselves to be both birds and humans.
  • Nuer boys:
    • Become men when they gain scar horns called ‘gar’ and a bull’s spirit.
    • As a result, they become a minotaur with human and bull spirits.

Selves are Transformed by Ritual Practice

  • Rituals are spiritual events that transform the material world.
  • Rituals have three stages:
    1. Separation – Set apart from society; old relationships are broken.
    2. Liminality – The critical and most dangerous step where the object is in neither its old nor new position.
    3. Emergence – Introduction as something different.
  • Example: A wedding
    • Separation: Bride and groom are separated from each other.
    • Liminality: Intermediate state with bachelor's parties and bridal showers.
    • Emergence: The two are joined and announced as a couple.

Types of Rituals

  1. Ritual of Propitiation:
    • A supplicant's request for relief, forgiveness, or a boon from a spiritual entity.
    • Example: Many North American Intuits (Eskimos) appeal to Sedna, a goddess of the deep ocean.
    • Sedna can send either animals or illness, depending on how she feels about the group.
    • Ritual steps:
      1. Elders begin a frank appraisal of wrongdoings during the year.
      2. Three Shamans go out onto the ice and chant; their spirits travel to the bottom of the ocean to speak with Sedna.
      3. They confess all things they’ve done wrong and ask for forgiveness.
    • Outcome: If they’ve confessed everything, Sedna will send animals to hunt; otherwise, she’ll send disease.
  2. Sacrifice:
    • Mortal applicants make a bargain with spirits by offering mutually prized possessions in return for their intervention.
    • Example: When the Nuer of east Africa sacrifice a bull:
      1. The animals are tethered to separate if from the rest of the herd.
      2. The animal is consecrated to a spirit, and the person performing the sacrifice speaks to all those present. This is a liminal space where the animal is alive, but already of the spirit world.
      3. The sacrifice is then carried out. The animal completes its trip to the spirit world; then the animal is butchered and eaten.
  3. Rite of Passage:
    • Persons are transformed from one social status to another.
    • Example: Masai Women:
      1. Masai women are separated from their previous relationships, undergo circumcision, remove all their old jewelry, and travel to the krall of their new husband’s father.
      2. As she arrives, she is teased by the women of her new krall until she cries. She learns that her position is that of a younger wife. Her co-wives defend her to establish their bond.
      3. After the ritual is complete, she emerges as a wife with a herd that will provide food for her and her children.

Coming of Age

  • Age Grade – a social status based on a level of maturity within a series of such statuses through which individuals are expected to pass over the course of their lives.
  • Age grades – a group within a society in which age mates occupy a similar status, act as a unit, and share resources.
  • Many age grades are sodalities, a form of social organization which cuts across ethnicity, kinship, and class.
  • They create social relationships which bind diverse peoples through common experiences and goals.
  • Movement through age grades is signaled by calendar age, events, maturation, or an achieved status like education, marriage, parenthood, or religious membership.
  • Examples: Bat Mitzvah, Seijin No Hi (Coming of Age Day).
  • Age grades come with new expectations of behavior and responsibilities which may or may not be discussed expressly.
  • Age-inappropriate behaviors:
    • Acting too young.
    • Acting too old.

Examples of Age Grades

  • Masai Females’ Age Grades:
    1. Enkitok – young girl.
    2. Entito – age 12-15 years. Candidate for womanhood. Sexual license, but the girl should not become pregnant.
    3. Wife – age 16 and, for some, after excision. Marriage soon after and she moves to her husband’s father’s enclave.
    4. Entacat – post-menopausal woman with elder status. The head of her son’s wives.
  • Maasai Males’ Age Grades:
    1. Laiyok – young, uncircumcised boys.
    2. Moran – circumcised warrior, resides in an external camp for 5 to 10 years.
    3. Senior warrior – can marry but stays at father’s enclave for 10 to 15 years.
    4. Elder warrior – after ceremonies of fire, milk, and meat he can establish his own enclave.

Coming of Age in a Modern World: Tradition versus Globalization

  • Traditional age grade systems are challenged by a globalized media from which age mates acculturate new identities.
  • Examples: Nigeria, Iran, China, Global hip-hop.
  • It is sometimes argued that young people have more in common with young people on other continents than they do their own grandparents.

Timeline of Globalizing Media

  • 19th century: Literature, magazines & newspapers.
  • 1920s: Motion pictures.
  • 1940s: Televisions.
  • 1970s: Home theater.
  • 1980s: Dial-up internet.
  • 1990s: Broadband internet.
  • 2000s: Wireless, broadband internet.
  • 2005: Camera phone, Youtube.
  • 2006: Google maps, Hulu, Twitter.
  • 2007: iPhone.
  • 2010: iPad.
  • 2012: Google Glass.
  • 2014: Facebook facial recognition, Apple Watch.
  • Other platforms: 1998 Google, 2000 Myspace, 2001 Wikipedia, 2003 iTunes, 2004 Facebook.

Global Media Examples

  • MTV: MTV Greece, MTV Canada, MTV Ireland, MTV Russia, MTV Spain, MTV Austria, MTV France, MTV Germany, MTV Europe, MTV Portugal, MTV Adria, MTV Hungary, MTV Denmark, MTV Finland, MTV Italy, MTV Netherlands, MTV Norway, MTV Poland, MTV Arabia, MTV Romania, MTV Lithuania, MTV Latvia, MTV Estonia, MTV Sweden, MTV Asia, MTV Japan, MTV Indonesia, MTV China, MTV Korea, MTV Philippines, MTV Taiwan, MTV Turkey, MTV Pakistan, MTV India, MTV Latin America, MTV Brazil, MTV Australia, MTV New Zealand, MTV Ukraine, and MTV Base in Africa.
    *In the 1980s, the global media included MTv. 1981 VJ’s
  • Worldwide communications allows sharing of identities among people of global age grades.
  • Examples: Bangor, Wales; Oulu, Finland; Tokyo, Japan; South Africa; Women who self-identify as “Goth.”
  • But there have always been generational trends, issues, and fads.
  • How powerful is mass media compared to cultural tradition?
  • Amish kids as they come of age are an example.
  • Documentary: The Devil’s Playground (77 minutes).
  • Pay attention to their experiences as they move through the three steps of a rite of passage.
  • Take note of the statistic at the end of the film which reveals how many Amish kids complete the rite and return to an Amish way of life.