It can be argued that Campbell’s text The Hero with a Thousand Faces is principally concerned the individual adventurer, man or woman, who embarks on journey goal of breaking bonds his her Oedipal attachments in order to achieve state liberation which mostly means not becoming an adult psychoneurotic. Campbell tells us stages are represented ritual actions cultural rites passage, ceremonials st...

This paper explores the rites of passage rituals as loci health outcomes. It highlights how religiously sanctioned practices play a central role in healthcare defiance perceived private and public dichotomy that dominates modern secular mindset. Highlighted chapter are African passage, specifically breast “ironing”, female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), child marriage. Drawing from finding...

While males in many societies endure traumatic and painful rites, in other societies male rites are mild or completely absent. To explain these cross-cultural differences, we use data collected from the Human Relations Area Files electronic databases (eHRAF) to test two sets of hypotheses derived from signaling theory. If costly male rites serve to signal mate quality, they would be expected to...

Every spring I get depressed. Last month I had the stunning realization that graduate student recruitment is a major cause of my spring depression. Each year, as the days lengthen, graduate programs engage in their ritualistic seduction of prospective students. In the past 15 years, US institutions, including the most elite and respected, have evolved mating displays worthy of birds and fish. T...

This paper explores the diverse ways that children and young people negotiate their social identities and construct their life course trajectories on the street, based on ethnographic research with street children in Tanzania. Drawing on the concept of a ‘street career’, I show how differences of age, gender and ethnicity intersect with the time spent on the street, to influence young people’s ...