The Establishment of Identity in a Social Nexus: The Special Case of Initiation Ceremonies and Their Relation to Value and Legal Systems

Cohen, Yehudi A.

doi:10.1525/aa.1964.66.3.02a00020

Cited by 36 publications

(10 citation statements)

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“…To differentiate themselves from others while confirming their group solidarity, adolescents commonly use visual and behavioral markers (Cohen, 1964). By attaching cultural meaning to otherwise benign material symbols such as dress and linguistic behaviors, Hmong adolescents can create culturally significant attributes by which they can communicate to others who they are as individuals (personal identity) and with which peer group(s) they identify (social identity).…”

Section: Peers and Social Identity Symbolsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Making Meanings, Meaning Identity: Hmong Adolescent Perceptions and Use of Language and Style as Identity Symbols

Nguyen

Brown

2010

Journal of Research on Adolescence

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Using qualitative interview data gathered from 28 Hmong adolescents, we examined the meaning ascribed to language and style and how language and style behaviors are used to distinguish identity. We found that the participants used language and style to define their own ethnic group membership and cultural identities. Moreover they inferred meaning from these identity behaviors to discern which peer groups are desirable (those who wear American style clothing and are bilingual) and which are of low social status (“fobby” style clothing and monolingual). The cultural identity symbols used by participants reveal heterogeneity among Hmong adolescent peer groups and evolving definitions of what it means to be Hmong in America.

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Section: Peers and Social Identity Symbolsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Making Meanings, Meaning Identity: Hmong Adolescent Perceptions and Use of Language and Style as Identity Symbols

Nguyen

Brown

2010

Journal of Research on Adolescence

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“…The involvements and increments in adult personality with which Whiting and his collaborators are concerned are those of infancy and the earliest years of childhood. I do not deny that these are significant (e.g., Cohen 1961) but, along with a growing number of contemporary psychoanalytic theoreticians, especially those represented in The Psychoanalytic Study o j the Child (viz., Volume 13, 1958), I dissent from the position which maintains that the experiences of infancy and earliest childhood are of primary and exclusive significance and that later formative experiencesespecially during adolescence-can be disregarded. The residues of infantile and earliest childhood experiences are made up primarily of unconscious fan-…”

Section: Cohen]mentioning

confidence: 97%

“…

…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

On Alternative Views of the Individual in Culture‐and‐Personality Studies

Cohen

1966

American Anthropologist

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N A paper in this journal (Cohen 1964a), based on a more extensive report of I several cross-cultural studies (1964b), I took strong exception to an interpretation of initiation ceremonies offered by Whiting and his collaborators (Burton and Whiting 1961 ; Whiting 1962; Whiting, Kluckhohn, and Anthony 1958). Inter a h , I noted that aniong the serious lacunae in their work was a failure to relate their variables of anal? sis in connection with initiation ceremonies to social structure and to its articulating principles (Cohen 1964a:529-534). I also took exception to the implication in their work that institutions of society can arise out of unconscious conflict.My purpose in this paper is to widen my disagreement with Whiting because our differences are more than divergent opinions over the specific meanings of initiation ceremonies and other cultural activities. There appears to be a fundamental conflict, which, if made explicit, can serve a useful purpose in future scientific discourse and in the evaluation of other inquiries. Our basic difference, as I see it, is over the conceptualization of the individual and of his relationship to the social s!stem. (See also Norbeck et al. 1962; Young 1962 Young , 1965 Whiting's exclusive focus on infantile and childhood experiences as determinants of later behavior implies that adults behave in terms of the residues of their infantile and earliest childhood experiences. This view has the logical, if not necessary, implication that it is sheer redundancy to study behavior in adulthood as well as in childhood because adult personality structure is the sum of the elements or factors which, with greater ease, are observable in childhood. I believe that one of the serious limitations in this orientation is that it blocks out from view the most important dimension of human life, namely, the reality of the institutional integrations to which the individual must adapt if he is to succeed within the social organiz a t ' ion. There are two specific stimuli t o this comn~unication; the first is a recent article by Landauer and Whiting (1964) published in this journal in which it is maintained that adults tend to be of taller stnture in societies in which infants are subject to considerable emotional stress than in societies in which they are not.To begin with, I would like to suggest briefly the following alternative explanation of the findings of Landaucr and Whiting: The range in stature in any given population is due primarily to dietary factors; taller stature in adults and emotional stress during infancy tend to covary with each other because, I hypothesize, infants and children who are suhject to considerable stress will eat 355

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“…Lançando mão de um traço recorrente dos ritos de iniciação masculina (cf. Cohen 1964), coloquei as mulheres em uma situação comunicativa paradoxal: é porque interagem com os homens (estão conscientes de que eles escutam seu murmúrio) que elas estão separadas deles (o murmúrio as impede de escutar o que iniciador e noviço estão dizendo). Essa posição ambígua é tanto mais difícil quanto são as próprias mulheres que precisam determinar, a partir do nível de ruído produzido em volta da mesa, quão ruidoso dever ser seu próprio murmúrio.…”

Section: O Vermelho E O Negrounclassified

O vermelho e o negro: um experimento para pensar o ritual

Houseman

2003

Mana

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Com o objetivo de explorar a ação ritual enquanto tal ("em si e por si", como recomenda Lévi-Strauss [1971:598]), tenho submetido meus alunos e demais participantes de um seminário que dirijo na École Pratique des Hautes Études a um algo descarnado rito de iniciação masculina, de minha própria autoria: O Vermelho e o Negro. Proponho-me aqui a descrevê-lo, sugerindo, ao mesmo tempo, certos traços recorrentes da ação ritual e, especificamente, dos ritos de iniciação (masculina). IntroduçãoEsse experimento foi projetado para ilustrar, e fundamentar melhor, idéias que desenvolvi alhures no contexto de uma abordagem analítica particular, que chamei "relacional", da performance ritual (cf. Houseman e Severi 1998;Houseman 1993;2000;2002). Nos termos desta abordagem, o ritual é visto como atuação [enactment] de relações, sejam elas relações entre participantes humanos ou, ainda -embutidas em uma rede de laços interpessoais -, relações com entidades outras, não humanas: espíritos, deuses, ancestrais, animais, objetos, fórmulas litúrgicas e assim por diante. Na medida em que essas relações são atuadas [acted out] e não apenas referidas, elas constituem não conexões lógicas ou metafóricas entre termos ou categorias abstratas, mas experiências pessoais sustentadas por eventos intencionais e emocionalmente carregados. Todavia, as relações que as pessoas atuam no ritual são, sob vários aspectos, inusitadas. Primeiro, ao reunirem em uma única seqüência de ação aspectos extraídos de uma grande variedade de domínios (subsistência, ciclo de vida, parentesco, outros eventos cerimoniais etc.), as relações rituais reenquadram esses elementos heteróclitos como componentes in-

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The Establishment of Identity in a Social Nexus: The Special Case of Initiation Ceremonies and Their Relation to Value and Legal Systems

Cited by 36 publications

References 14 publications

Making Meanings, Meaning Identity: Hmong Adolescent Perceptions and Use of Language and Style as Identity Symbols

Making Meanings, Meaning Identity: Hmong Adolescent Perceptions and Use of Language and Style as Identity Symbols

On Alternative Views of the Individual in Culture‐and‐Personality Studies

O vermelho e o negro: um experimento para pensar o ritual

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