Whose Turn Is It to Cook? Communitas and Pilgrimage Questioned

Abstract

Margery Kempe, a fifteenth-century apprentice mystic and religious zealot, went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem about 1413. Along way, she endured a difficult and dangerous journey and extreme animosity of pilgrimage group with whom she shared fellowship. She was only woman, aside from her maid, amongst them, and they, in their anger over her constant sermonizing, abandoned her several times, leaving her to find a new protector and guide so that she could continue her journey. Not only did they abandon her, but they also publicly humiliated her and took a significant amount of her money and her maid. Margery Kempe had been marginalized by this group of men, a priest amongst them, and put in her place (Collis 55-62). She was subjected to this kind of brutality because she was a woman who spoke out of turn when she dared to reprimand her male companions for what she considered to be wanton and frivolous behaviour while on pilgrimage to those holy places where lord was quick and dead (Collis 90). They in turn reminded her of her place as a woman. They ripped her dress to above her knees, forced her to wear a large canvas apron--a piece of garb that marked one as a working woman, a station to which she did not belong--and forced her to sit at lowest position of table when dining (57). Power resided with these status-conscious men. Margery was a woman who resisted keeping to her place. Instead, she saw herself in part as an envoy of Jesus. Assuming role of theologian and Christian moralist, she challenged actions of her fellow travellers. For this she was subjected to their deployment of power. In Kempe's representation of her experience, what is visible are social systems, in this instance gender and class ideologies, that shaped conditions of her pilgrimage experience. Her confrontation with her male travelling companions was premised on their beliefs in regard to nature and role of women. Their disciplining of Kempe drew on a social-status discourse to create a situation of humiliation. If, as some have argued following Victor Turner's work, act of pilgrimage is one of anti-structure, or a period of time wherein social systems are absent, then surely Kempe's story of her pilgrimage is an anomaly. Or is it? Victor Turner's work has significantly affected fields of ritual studies, religious studies, anthropology, and sociology. Throughout his tenure as map-maker in ritual studies, Turner developed several significant concepts that continue to be utilized and developed. His notion of liminoid (an experience that underscores communitas) was built upon Arnold Van Gennep's theory of liminality, wherein ritual participant was betwixt and between:' or outside social order while in transitional phase of a rite of passage. Turner took intention behind this term and developed it in connection with industrial societies. He indicated that liminoid, or quasi-liminal, is a term that describes the many genres found in modern industrial society that have features resembling those of liminality. These genres are akin to ritually liminal, but not identical with it; [ ... ] they are plural, fragmentary, experimental, idiosyncratic, quirky, subversive, utopian, and consumed by identifiable individuals (Turner and Turner 253). He applied term liminoid to phenomenon of pilgrimage, which has, according to Turner, some of phase attributes (153) that one finds in rites of passage. Communitas is a second important concept developed by Turner. Communitas, or social anti-structure, is a liminal phenomenon that arises spontaneously in all kinds of groups, situations, and circumstances;' wherein participants are liberated from conformity to general norms:' although this liberation is neither permanent nor deconstructive. Rather, it acts to support status by its momentary reversal of status. Turner indicates that communitas is fons et origio of all structures and at same time their critique (Turner and Turner 250). …

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