Risk-taking in youth culture as a ritual process

Abstract

This paper proposes a theoretical rereading of adolescent risk-taking experiences by adopting a sociocultural perspective. Thus, drawing from E. Erikson’s (1963, 1968) conception of identity exploration and experimentation, combined with V. Turner’s (1969, 1974) anthropological research on symbols, rituals, and liminal processes, as well as with recent research on the culture of risk-taking in adolescence (e.g., Eagan & Thorne, 2010; Lightfoot, 1997; Thorne & McLean, 2003), this paper argues that the so- called externalizing problems (and, more specifically, engagement in antisocial acting out) embody deep cultural scripts. These scripts, as we construe them, seem to obey a general schema that is crucial to contemporary youth culture and that one may phrase as “less structure and more intensity”, in line with Turner’s “anti-structure” concepts of “liminality” and “communitas”. In addition, this correlates with a sui generis style of reflexive storytelling strongly marked by discontinuity and ruptures, emblematically illustrated by episodes of interpersonal loss and ephemeral deviancy. We maintain that such forms of acting out constitute the embodiment of symbols which are rewritten and ritualized in peer groups, and whose appropriation and reiteration become the determining condition for gaining social recognition and personal worth.