TURNER, VICTOR (1920–1983). Scottish-born American anthropologist and comparative religionist. On the basis of fieldwork in central Africa, Victor Witter Turner produced the richest ethnographic achievement of the period after World War II, and he explained the nature of religious ritual and symbolism in an African society in more detail than anyone had before.

Turner was born in Glasgow, Scotland. In 1943, in the midst of his five years of military service, he married Edith Davis, who was to collaborate with him in field research and writing throughout his career. He received his B.A. degree with honors in anthropology in 1949 from the University of London, where he studied with some of the leading figures of structural-functionalism: A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, Meyer Fortes, Raymond Firth, and Edmund Leach. He went on to graduate study at the University of Manchester under Max Gluckman and was introduced to conflict theory and political...