Leila Barber- Liminality

I think our society puts adolescence at a liminality state throughout the teenage years up until the early twenties. We gain privileges at different periods which makes it confusing as to who we are and what we are/are not allowed to do. Various cultures worldwide have distinct passovers for the transition into adulthood and that is something that we greatly lack. In my anthropology class last semester we watched a video on a rite of passage for young girls. They are taken out of their daily life, taught a special dance to perform in front of the entire community; after being approved by the elders, they go into a ‘fat house’ with the main objective to eat and sleep. Weight gaining is key and seen as beautiful. Once they gain their weight they are taken for special ritual baths at a river and a ceremony is given for them to reenter the community as a woman. Although, in America, we have rights between the ages of fifteen and twenty one, we don’t have a distinct ceremony or process, such as this, that we go through of separation, liminality and aggregation. In my opinion, I think the liminality stage could be said that it ends at twenty one because the majority of people have a big celebration for that. By that age adolescence is basically over and one can be identified as an adult.