Third Turner Reading: Communitas - Tara Thompson

The definition of communitast, or “social antistrcuture” in Turner’s Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture is “a relational quality of full unmediated communication, even communion, between definite and determinate identities, which arises spontaneously in all kinds of groups, situations, and circumstances”. Turner goes on to explain that communitas is not rational or abstract; it is spontaneous and direct. It is a bond formed between people that wasn’t planned or mediated, but simply happened due to the position they were in. Through out this semester, we learned how on the Appalachian Trail, communitas is something that almost everyone experience. It has something to do with your surroundings and what your experiencing. You are all in the wilderness, going through the same trials and tribulations together, and because of that you form a specific bond that you might now if you were under different circumstances. I think communitas is such a beautiful, intriguing idea, and I would absolutely love to experience it for myself one day.