My thesis exhibition entitled The Privilege of Being Solid is an exploration of the tension that is generated by our desire for an ultimate corporeal security and the realization that nothing is permanent. This tension expresses itself in the world in varying degrees through programs of repression oscillating with periods of chaos. <p>We live in a post-modern era of fragmentation and uncertainty, although modernist attitudes concerned with universals, certainties and a manic desire to control largely guide many of our institutions, political and otherwise. I believe that this desire to control creates cultural anxiety due to the virtual unattainability of certainty and control. This denial of our inherent insecurity, vulnerability and ultimate mortality generates a violence that feeds back into our collective anxiety. The loop perpetuates itself in a cycle of fear, denial and arrogance that fuels a raft of industries devoted to security, feeding off of our communal angst. The very human characteristic that has enabled these circumstances is the subject of this exhibition.<p>It is my intention to reflect some of the contradictions found in our current condition by generating a dialogue between fragility and strength; beauty and the abject; certainty and doubt; liquid and solid; as well as humor and emotional gravity. These contradictions extend to my material of choice as well. With the exception of a two channel video installation, all the works in the exhibition employ encaustic (wax) processes. Although wax appears to be solid, it is in fact classified as a liquid. It is always in flux and unless conditions are ideal, wax remains in a precariously unstable condition. It also reflects in its materiality, a sensuality that is of primary importance to me as an artist, both in terms of the processes in which I engage in my studio, as well as the objects I create for a potential viewer.<p>Through sculptural processes of casting, pouring and melting, encaustic mark making and digital manipulations of physical theater, I want to contrast the forces at work within our lives that seek to control our environment with notions of surrender to the natural state of impermanence in which we reside. I want to reflect the oscillation between the collective desire for security and the knowledge of our inherent fragility and vulnerability.

This interpretive study uses hermeneutic phenomenological methodology to understand the experience of six college students in Taiwan who participate in TV talk show as studio audience. Texts were collected from in-depth interviews. The result indicated a dramatic interaction framework toward the whole experience: participants as performers must ¡¥act¡¦ like undergraduate students, though the show ¡V from script, setting to personal front ¡V must be ratified by producer. Furthermore, two transformative effects are found in participants. First, they were socialized in the studio through the performance, and learned more social-performing skills and scripts. Second, they are bothered by mixing up their drama-roles with social-roles. It was the producer¡¦s purpose to represent ¡¥a world beneath¡¦ of college students in University. However it became ¡¥a public trial¡¦ on TV after excessive entertainment manipulation.

Reproduction de : Thèse d'exercice : Médecine spécialisée : Nancy 1 : 2002. / Thèse : 2002NAN11051. Titre provenant de l'écran-titre.

The Tracks rites of passage are processes that mark the adolescent transition, for the participant, the family and the community, between the two life stages of childhood and adulthood. Adolescent initiation rites offer a community led journey of separation, transition and integration as a way to work meaningfully with adolescents as they move between the life stages of childhood into adulthood. In Aotearoa/New Zealand the Tracks programme provides a five day contemporary rite of passage for adolescents and, where possible, their fathers. The rite of passage is based on the assumption that adolescents need opportunities to find their voices and make meaning if they are to become more aware of who they are and where they belong. The methodology recognises that I, as researcher and insider in the Tracks organisation, needed to develop a holistic approach to insider research so that I could call on my understandings of the organisation and also guard against bias. The holistic approach involves the four interpenetrating strategies of appreciative inquiry, narrative inquiry, a blend of approaches to self-study that include meditation and critical reflection, and most importantly organic inquiry. The four strategies are based on coherence theories that describe learning as being organic, interconnected and emergent. Data were gathered from interviews and cycles of critical self-reflection in the form of a learning journal. Data comes from interviews with the mother or fathers and young men of six families who have participated in the Tracks rite of passage programme. I have also discussed this work with a number of professionals in the field of youth work. The project found that Tracks had created conditions that empowered these young men with an increased capacity to make sense of their lives. Fathers expressed how challenging and rewarding they had found it to speak in honest terms with their sons, and that they were supported to do the inner work necessary to be able to speak in such ways. All of the family members expressed a need to have more support after the event. The findings suggest a need to explore further the nature of the work happening at Tracks. It validates Lashlie’s (2005) theory that adolescents need their fathers and other men to be involved in their lives at the time of transition. Tracks also helps fathers to get to grips with the inner work of developing emotional maturity. The work happening at Tracks invites further research into and debate on the value of emotional intelligence. The Tracks rite of passage offers an alternative perspective to understand the unacceptably high rates of adolescent morbidity and mortality happening in New Zealand.

Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2009. / Title from title page (Digital Archive@GSU, viewed June 24, 2010) Kathryn McClymond, committee chair; Timothy Renick, Gary Laderman, committee members. Includes bibliographical references (p. 73-76).

In the Dutch Reformed Church (NGK), as well as in other reformed churches, confirmation is an important mile stone in every person's life: It is when young people (or new members) can make a public (re) commitment to God. In this study, the researcher proposes a new way of thinking about confirmation as a liturgical transitional ritual (rite of passage). The research questions in the study are: o During which transitional life phase will confirmation be best suitable and meaningful? o What liturgical praxis theory and key points can be given to help a liturgist to make sense and present this liturgical ritual as transitional ritual? These research questions are approached by studying the question from different probes in the various chapters: a liturgical probe, a psychological and anthropological probe, a transitional (rites of passage) ritual probe, as well as an anthropological theological probe on faith formation. The researcher proposes a liturgy practice theory with key points to keep in mind when planning the liturgical ritual confirmation. In addition, she suggested that confirmation takes place during the transition phase to emerging adulthood. However, the reader will conclude from the different probes and summary of the study that there are more: more transitions, more life phases and more transitional rites and commitments that we can do in the DRC (as well as other reformed churches). / Dissertation (MTh)--University of Pretoria, 2018. / Die Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns / Practical Theology / MTh / Unrestricted

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for The Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Community Psychology) Faculty of Arts University of Zululand, 2010. / The lives of individuals in all societies are a series of passages from one age to another and from one occupation to the other. Among the Vhavenda, there are fine distinctions among age or occupational groups and progression from one group to the next is accompanied by special rituals enveloped in ceremonies which involve actions that are clearly regulated and guarded so that the entire society suffer no discomfort or injury. The research explores and describes the lived experiences of Vha-Venda initiated women in the rural areas of Mashau, Mashawana and Shayandima village in Limpopo Province, South Africa. The perception that transition practices, otherwise known as initiation rituals or rites of passage, are only practiced in the ‘traditional’ societies because it is believed to be where the culture is embedded. This study draws on qualitative research principles based on the ethnographic approach. This research explores and describes the lived experiences of initiation of Venda women that is practiced and currently being implemented in the three villages that is, Mashau, Mashawana and Shayandima village in Limpopo Province, South Africa. As a result, this study is informed by the qualitative data gathered during the initial stages of the research with the assistance of research guides. The core material in this study emerges from in depth, semi-structured interviews conducted during individual interviews and focus group interviews with fifteen initiated women and two research guides between the age of thirty and sixty. The research guides, with special knowledge of the culture assisted the researcher on the process and activities of the initiation and also informed the researcher about the venues where certain rituals take place and also assisted in translation of certain phrases for clarification. In compliance with research ethics, the identities of the respondents remain confidential through the use of pseudonyms. The research concludes that the lived experiences of women initiation are private and one is strictly prohibited to talk about them, especially with uninitiated women. The aim is to portray the traditional social and cultural ritual proposed to be learnt and preserved. In this study, the researcher’s findings are that: Conformity, compliance and obedience with the initiation rituals can save a person from embarrassment in Limpopo Province where initiation is practiced. Participants reported that women are silenced and forbidden to talk about initiation outside ‘dombani’ with the uninitiated women. They reported that the initiation ritual is secret and thus a taboo to talk about it. Initiates are prohibited to disclose what happens during the initiation process. In contrast, uninitiated women viewed the ritual as barbaric and promiscuous. The initiated indicated that they were forced to attend because of fear of rejection, discrimination and isolation by the community. Other participants agreed to have attended for the sake of acceptance, though they believed to have gained knowledge about understanding womanhood. Most of the women mentioned that although it was some years that they had attended the initiation school, they still carried the burden of anger, shame, humiliation, frustration, low-self esteem, sense of helplessness and lack confidence and still find it hard to share their experiences or talk about them. The researcher concurs with the participants and Stayt (1968) that initiated women are denied freedom of expression. It is sticky prohibited to talk or share the initiation experiences with the non- initiated let alone discuss it outside dombani. Thereby, the aim, and its concomitant 4 objectives, have been thoroughly explored and achieved.

Dans la perspective d’une anthropologie ontologique, la thèse vise à mieux comprendre les continuités et les transformations au sein des rites de passage chez les Inuit du Nunavik, depuis leur conversion au christianisme jusqu’au contexte actuel. Les rites de la grossesse, de l’accouchement, et de la naissance, y sont décrits en détail, tout comme le processus de dénomination de l’enfant, puis les rites de la première fois. Cette ethnographie mobilise une démarche comparative régionale, et s’appuie sur plusieurs collaborations avec des institutions du Nunavik. Les séquences de ces rites de passage sont dès lors analysées à la fois comme des temps forts de la construction de la personne, et comme des témoins de la résilience manifestée par la culture inuit. Au cœur de la socialisation de l’enfant, ces rites apparaissent en effet avoir contribué à transmettre certains principes culturels grâce auxquels différents éléments de la cosmologie chrétienne ont pu être adaptés et incorporés. Ces rites auraient alors participé de l’actualisation de la cosmologie inuit au XXe siècle, et en particulier de la réorganisation des relations que les humains entretiennent avec différents êtres non-humains. En transmettant jusqu’à aujourd’hui les principes ontologiques fondant ces relations, après y avoir intégré plusieurs éléments de la tradition chrétienne, ces rites suggèrent de considérer l’importance du rôle socialisateur des êtres non-humains – fœtus, défunts, animaux, esprits – dans l’éducation enfantine, et appellent une réflexion sur l’extension de la notion de personne aux êtres non-humains. / Using ontological anthropology as a theoretical framework, this thesis aims to better understand the continuities and transformations in the rites of passage among the Inuit of Nunavik, since their conversion to Christianity until today. The rites of pregnancy, childbirth, and birth, are described in detail, as well as the naming process of the child, and the rites of the first time. This ethnography uses a regional comparative approach, and is based on several collaborations with some institutions of Nunavik. The sequences of these rites of passage are therefore analyzed both as a highlight of the construction of the person, and as witnesses to the resilience shown by the Inuit culture. At the heart of the socialization of children, these rites indeed appear to have contributed to convey certain cultural principles by which different elements of the Christian cosmology could be adapted and incorporated. These rites would thus have been instrumental in updating the Inuit cosmology of the twentieth century, and more precisely in reorganizing of relationships that humans have with various non-human beings. Passing on, until today, the ontological principles underlying these relations, and after incorporating several elements of the Christian tradition, these rites suggest the importance of acknowledging the socializing role played by many non-human beings – foetuses, deceased, animals, spirits - in early education. It therefore implies to address a sensitive question, that is, the extension of the notion of person to non-humans beings.

This thesis was planned as a cross-case study of three docent-led museum tours, examined through the lens of liminality. The liminal, as identified by anthropologist Victor Turner, is an ambiguous and transitional state that is “betwixt and between” normative structures. When applied to the art museum, I argue that the liminal is a zone of negotiation that can assist in transformation and personal meaning making through a phenomenon of thought. This study centers on the following questions: How can liminal theory, as applied to museum education, illuminate the relationships between gallery teachers, visitors, and objects? And, in what ways does liminality allow for visitors’ personal meaning making to occur? These questions were answered through the planned observation of three docent-led museum tours at the Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas at Austin. Video and audio recordings, as well as observational field notes, occurred in one museum gallery and focused on one artwork, Cildo Meireles’ Missão/Missões (How to Build Cathedrals). Data was collected from narrative transcripts of the aforementioned video and audio recordings, exit interviews with docents, observational field notes taken during each tour, and observations and notes made while analyzing the video and audio footage. Two of these three tours fit within the parameters set by the researcher and, therefore, one tour was eliminated from the research findings. Content analysis is utilized in this study. This type of data analysis placed information into three categories modeled after Arnold van Gennep’s rites de passage: separation, the liminal, and aggregation. Four subcategories were subsequently discovered during this analysis: observation, connection, realization, and transformation. Conclusions determined after the analysis of this data revealed fluidity between these stages. Additionally, liminal theory illuminated the relationships between visitors, objects, and museum educators in a way that stressed that the negotiation of the artwork, meaning making, and the process of transformation are part of a collaborative journey, and that the spaces “betwixt and between” are valuable for the advancement of museum education. / text

Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.