ABSTRACT
The Leskernick Project is embedded within the hierarchical structures of academic life. However, although social relations between the project members reflect this fact, the archaeological fieldwork is also characterised by strong bonds of ‘mateship’ that originate from the collective experience of working conditions that are often extremely difficult. In apparent contrast to the academic concerns of the project, the participants lived for a short time in a liminal space free from many of the concerns of day-to-day existence. But this contrast is more apparent than real because, as with other instances of liminality that are constitutive of rites of passage, one of the goals of participation is the achievement of new status through processes akin to rebirth (Turner 1967: 95). This status clearly relates to the position of each practitioner within the field of academic archaeology and it is towards this domain that we must look to identify the cultural materials through which both liminality and formal order are structured in the context of the project.
