Arnold van Gennep
Charles-Arnold Kurr van Gennep (born April 23, 1873 – died 1957) was a German-born, French ethnographer and folklorist, often regarded as the father of modern French ethnography. He remains famous for his study of the rites of passage rituals.
Life
Arnold van Gennep was born in Ludwigsburg, Germany), in a family of mixed Dutch-French emigrants. When he was six his parents separated, and van Gennep moved with his mother to Lyons, France. He initially enrolled in a school in Lyons, but due to numerous behavioral problems he was transferred in 1884 to Sainte-Barbe-des Champs in Paris. He completed high school in Nice, receiving prizes for his grades, but penalties for frequent misconduct.
In 1892 van Gennep received the philo aux sciences restreintes degree from a lycée in Grenoble. After a dispute with his stepfather over whether to continue to study surgery in Lyons or Paris, van Gennep decided to chose neither, and start his career as a diplomat. He possessed incredible languages skills (by the end of his career he could speak eighteen different languages), and this career choice was a logical decision. He moved to Paris and enrolled in École des hautes etudes. There he fell in love with a beautiful, young, but poor girl, whom he eventually married in 1897, despite his parent’s disapproval. The couple moved to Czentochowa, Poland, where van Gennep worked as a school teacher. They lived there from 1897 to 1901.
After returning to France, van Gennep decided to complete his education in the École Pratique des Hautes Études and the École des Langues Orientales in Paris. His studies included general linguistics, ancient and modern Arabic language, Egyptology, Islamic studies, and studies of the religions of primitive peoples. His dissertation was published in two parts – first in 1904 under the title Tabou et totémisme à Madagascar, and second in 1906 under the name Mythes et légendes d’Australie. In 1909 he published his most important work, Les rites de passage (The Rites of Passage), which introduced him to the world academia.
Van Gennep worked as a translator in the Ministry of Agriculture for several years. He worked several jobs at the same time, which ensured sufficient income for his family of four. At the same time he was able to do the academic work. In 1912 and 1914 he conducted fieldwork in Algeria, writing on the role of women in Islamic society. From 1912 to 1915 he worked for the University of Neuchâtel in Switzerland, where he taught ethnology. In 1915 though, he was expelled from the university, as a result of his criticism of the Swiss pro-German politics. That was the only academic position he ever had. He tried several times after that to obtain academic post, especially in France, but the door for him seemed to be closed. He lectured in many universities, but never on a French one. Perhaps one of the reasons for this restraining from the French universities was his fierce criticism of Emil Durkheim’s work, which was so deeply rooted in French academia.
In 1920 van Gennep started the intensive study of French folklore. His seven-volume Manuel de folklore français contemporain and four-volume Le folklore François are from this period. He worked as a writer for the l’Institut Pelman (1927-1933), and Mercure de France (1906-1939), writing on the topics of ethnography, folklore, and religion. Throughout 1940s and 1950s he published numerous books and articles on different topics in the area of ethnography. He lectured on different universities around the world.
Van Gennep died in 1957 in Bourg-la-Reine, France.
Work
Van Gennep is best known for his work on rites of passage ceremonies and his study of totemism in early societies.
Rites of Passage
His most famous publication is Les rites de passage (The Rites of Passage) (1909), which describes rituals of passing from one stage of life to another. Van Gennep noticed, as he worked among different peoples of Africa and Oceania, that birth, puberty, marriage, and death, are specially commemorated in every culture. The actual ceremonies may differ, but their meaning is universal – celebration of the transition from one phase of life to another. He writes:
- ”I demonstrated… that all over the world and in all civilizations, from the most primitive to the most evolved, every change of place, of social situation ... – all innovation and very often even all modification is accompanied ... by rites ... which always follow the same order and constitute the schema-type of the rites of passage”. (Le folklore du Dauphine, 1932).
He argued that all rites of passage share similar features, including:
1) Period of segregation from previous way of life (preliminary phase);
2) State of transition from one status to another (liminar phase); and
3) Process of introduction to the new social status and the new way of life (postliminar phase).
Van Gennep describes two types of rites of passage:
1. Rites that mark the transition of a person from one social status to another during his or her lifetime
2. Rites that mark some important points in the passage of time (new moon, new year, solstice or equinox).
Van Gennep regarded rites of passage as essentially needed for normal and healthy life of society. He believed that rites of passage preserve social stability by releasing the pressure built up in individuals through giving them new social status and new roles.
Totemism and conflict with Durkheim
Van Gennep was a fierce critic of Emil Durkheim and L’Année Sociologique and their approach to society. In a series of articles in mid-1900s, van Gennep and Marcel Mauss, one of the main propagators of Durkheim’s ideas, publicly correspond on the topic of totemism. Van Gennep saw human social institutions necessary for human survival. He argued that humans form groups in order to survive, and thus groups have special place in human evolution. Moreover, van Gennep saw the very process of forming groups the natural tendency of matter, visible in the nature:
- “Indeed, one can very well admit in chemistry and in crystallography inherent tendencies of the bodies, tendencies of movement and tendencies of grouping” (L’état actuel du problème totémique, 1920).
In order for a group to survive, however, internal cohesion, as well as the continuity of the group through generations has to be achieved. In the earliest societies totemism, argued van Gennep, provided both continuity and cohesion. Moreover, it proliferated itself independently from secondary groups in the society - family, clan, or caste, and provided a means for establishing the relationship between groups. Van Gennep objected Durkheim’s view that social institutions evolve because of the evolution of human intellect and culture. Rather, he claimed, it is social institutions that evolve, due to the growth of complexity of social relationships.
Another point of dispute between van Gennep and Durkheim was on the role of an individual in the society. Van Gennep opposed Durkheim’s claim that individuals are subordinated to the will of the society, and can do little against the collective. Van Gennep claimed that society is composed of individuals, and thus individuals have power to change the whole. He wrote:
- ”But a human society has for primordial components individual forces each of which can at any moment react.... I have too often insisted on this power of the individual, even in primitive societies, to modify the collective situation to need to return to it here...” (L’état actuel du problème totémique, 1920).
He believed that although folklore is a collective and anonymous creation of the people, creative force of the individual can still change the collective. The object of the study of folklore is thus the individual within the group, and not the group itself.
Legacy
Arnold van Gennep was the first anthropologist to study the significance of the ceremonies linked to the transitional stages of human life. He coined the term "the rites of passage," which is still in usage in modern anthropology and sociology.
Van Gennep’s work The Rites of Passage was highly influential in the structuring of Joseph Campbell's book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, as Campbell divides the journey of the hero into three parts - Departure, Initiation, and Return. It has also influenced anthropologist Victor Turner's research, particularly his 1969 text, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure.
Bibliography
- van Gennep, Arnold. 1904. Tabou et totémisme à Madagascar. Paris: Leroux.
- van Gennep, Arnold. 1906. Mythes et légendes d’Australie. Paris: Guilmoto.
- van Gennep, Arnold. 1920. L’état actuel du problème totémique. Paris: Leroux.
- van Gennep, Arnold. 1932. Le folklore du Dauphine (Isère), etude descriptive et comparée de psychologie populaire. Paris: Libraire Orientale et Américaine’
- van Gennep, Arnold. 1967. The Semi-Scholars. (Rodney Needham, transl.). Routledge & K. Paul
- van Gennep, Arnold. 1973. Culte populaire des saints en Savoie: Recueil d'articles d'Arnold van Gennep. G.-P. Maisonneuve & Larose. ISBN 2706805641
- van Gennep, Arnold. 1980. Coutumes et croyances populaires en France. Chemin vert. ISBN 2903533016
- van Gennep, Arnold. 1985 (original work from 1924). Folklore. Pennsylvania State University.
- van Gennep, Arnold. 1992 (original work in 7 volumes published between 1937 and 1958). Manuel de folklore français contemporain. Maisonneuve et Larose. ISBN 2706810475
- van Gennep, Arnold. 1995. Traité comparatif des nationalités. Cths - Comité des Travaux. ISBN 2735503275
- van Gennep, Arnold. 1999. Le folklore François (4 Volumes). Robert Laffont Publ. ISBN 222191192X
- van Gennep, Arnold. 2004 (original work from 1909). The Rites of Passage. Routledge. ISBN 0415330238
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Belmont, Nicole. 1979. Arnold Van Gennep: The Creator of French Ethnography. Chicago, Il: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226042162
- Campbell, Joseph. 1972. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691017840
- D'Allondans, Thierry G. 2002. Rites de Passage, Rites D'Initiation: Lecture D'Arnold Van Gennep. Presses de L'Universite Laval. ISBN 276377864X
- Mauss, Marcel. 1907. Review of Arnold van Gennep’s Mythes et légendes d’Australie. L’ Année Sociologique, 10, 226-229.
- Turner, Victor. 1969. The Ritual Process. Structure and Anti-Structure. Walter De Gruyter Inc. ISBN 0202010430
- Zumwalt, Rosemary. 1982. Arnold van Gennep: The Hermit of Bourg-la-Reine. American Anthropologist, 84, 299-313
External links
- Arnold van Gennep - Biography by Rosemary Zumwalt from the University of California at Berkeley
- Arnold van Gennep – Biography at Bookrags
- Rites of passage - van Gennep and beyond – Good article on the rites of passage, as seen by van Gennep and other scholars
- Rites of Passage: A Few Definitions – Text by Victor Turner
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