Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
MILLI FOLKLOR, sa.121, ss.102-114, 2019 (AHCI)
There are some "important" rites of passage in human life such as birth, marriage and death. There are also some "interval" rites of passage depending on the perception of the world and social acceptance. Social and cultural changes in today's world necessitated to incorporate into these rites of passage of "the ijazah and graduation ceremony". Ijazah expresses the permission and approval for proficieny in art and profession and it is taken from a person depending on religious-mystical tradition in traditional Islamic education and training and involves academic diplomas obtained from madrasas. The knowledge and skills of the student are approved by official institutions, societies and individuals in the process of education with graduation. In addition to the official graduation celebrations where graduation certificates are given to students, there are also specific ceremonies such as graduation proms, graduation dinner, graduation henna ceremony and graduation mawlid which are organized informally by students. The ijazah ceremony and college graduation are accepted as a rite of passage in this study and continuity and transformation from ijazah ceremony to graduation celebration was examined. The aim of study is to analyze the transformation from ijazah to graduation and its continuity by comparing ijazah ceremony with college graduation celebration. The graduation ceremonies have been observed through participant observation, and interviews have been conducted with students who have attended the celebration. Transformation from ijazah to graduation is conceptualised in five categories: "from ritual to entertainment", "from individual to mass", "from religieux to secular understanding or from rite to celebration", "from local to global" and "from competence to standardisation". Transformation process from ijazah to graduation ceremony was associated to modernization, globalization and popularization in macro perspective and it was benefited from graduation ceremonies in specific terms, symbolic in micro perspective, "performance" and "front" based on the presentation of self in everyday life by Erving Goffman in the interactionist perspective and lastly, "society of the spectacle" conceptualized by Guy Debord. Firstly, as a ritual of rite of passage ijazah ceremony and ijazahnamas have been examined in the study, then transformation from ijazah to graduation ceremony that synthesizes the culture of popularized entertainment and the consumption culture along with global lifestyles has been interpreted using data of field study. To sum up, it can be said that the structure of the ijazah ceremony has in common with the meaning and aim of the graduation ceremony as well as differences that the graduation ceremonies are shaped by the global and social effects.