Unravelling Ritual

Victor Turner and the problems of exegesis

Authors

• Peter Metcalf University of Virginia

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30676/jfas.v33i4.116462

Abstract

As a pioneer in the interpretation of ritual, Victor Turner showed us how to access other peoples’ deepest understandings about the nature of life. In the process, he encountered problems of presentation that ethnographers still have to confront. This paper explores Turner’s solutions to these problems, and how subsequent authors have modified them.

Keywords: ritual, ethnography, Victor Turner