Taboo, Personal and Collective Representations
examines the symbolic nature of taboo, asking what is the purpose of a taboo and how does it vary cross-culturally? The book focuses on the concept of taboo as an in-between, organizing principle which separates and differentiates stages through a ritual process of separation of
order
as clean/blessed from
disorder
as polluted/disassociated.
This book uses an interdisciplinary approach which compares the anthropological, ethnological, sociological, and depth psychological perspectives of renowned scholars in their examination of taboos. Unconscious/conscious taboos influence how we perceive transitional, indeterminate states across margins in the maturation and individuation processes. The book argues that a taboo embodies the perilous, symbolic meaning of such a rite of passage and that its emotional value and intensity in the form of symptomology varies across cultures.
will be of great interest to researchers, academics and post-graduate students in the fields of anthropology, ethnology, origins of religion, race, gender, and depth psychology.