DRAMA, RITUAL AND PERFORMANCE IN VICTOR TURNER'S WORK

Abstract

This study of Victor Turner's work takes as a starting point his deep interest in symbols and its effect on social experience. Ritual is the theme that embraces Turner's interest, unfolding in many ways throughout the successive phases of his intellectual career. Chihamba, a healing Ndembu ritual, and the mythical character Kavula - that already appear in his first book Schism and continuity in an African society (1996 [1957]) - are used as guidelines for the apprehension of the concepts of social drama, ritual symbol, and performance, three clusters of Victor Turner's main contributions to anthropological theory.

Keywords Drama; Ritual; Performance; Victor Turner; Anthropology