Turner describes in his book (Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture) communitas or anti-structure. He defines it as “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.” Communitas strain toward universalism and openness. Turner goes on to describe three different types of Communitas. The first of which being Spontaneous or existential, followed by normative and Ideological. Each type of communitas is different in its own way, but they all share the common idea of a communitas.
The type of communitas I have experienced personally is more of spontaneous communitas. Over the summer I traveled abroad as part of a group of students who did not know each other who goal was to take a course and return safely. While abroad nobody have cell phone service, and land line cost something ridiculous like several dollars a minute, and for the first few days we did not have internet access. We were essentially cut off from the outside world. We started out just as a cold group of people who didn’t speak to each other but soon became very tight group of friends. After just a few days we were speaking with each other like we had known each other for years. We started out just taking a course with strangers, not knowing the rank or intelligence. We bonded and created a group of openness.
For me, reading about liminality, flow, and communitas was very fascinating seeing I had felt like I experienced them all while abroad. Looking back I find it so amazing that we were able to create such a close group so fast like that, and now I am able to call it what it was, a communitas.
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