The concept of ‘the field’ is significant in ethnographic research as well as qualitativ research methods more generally. However, how a field researcher enters the field is usually taken for granted after gaining access to the field. We suggest that entrance is a distinct phase of fieldwork that differs from negotiating access. Entrance is not a trivial event; rather, it is a rite of passage i...

Three interrelated issues coincide to make male circumcision a critical service that needs to be provided as standard care in district health centres in South Africa. One relates to the fact that male circumcision is a long-established social and cultural practice in South Africa, with both traditional and medical antecedents. It is a rite of passage for boys into manhood among the African majo...

This article employs the rite of passage concept to analyze why and how heroin use and a subsequent HIV/AIDS epidemic have taken hold among minority Nuosu (Yi) young men in Southwest China. It juxtaposes structural inequalities and sociocultural particularities in social suffering among Nuosu youths as they attempt to create meaningful lives in China's market reform era. Since the 1980s, young ...

This article about Exod 4,24-26 argues that God is willing to kill Moses since he had not circumcised his son. The ritual described in the textual unit an example of circumcision as a life cycle at threshold adulthood. Originally, ancient Israel was carried out on boys eighth day after birth. As result construction new identity return from exile, age changed early puberty newborn. offers glimps...

This article explores confirmation as a ritual of Christian initiation in the context English Reformation. It examines how this rite passage, which was demoted from its traditional status sacrament, survived and evolved wake theological, liturgical ecclesiological changes associated with advent Protestantism. traces permutations practice laying on hands that both united fractured people within ...