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The Arbaeen march, as an event in commemoration of the 40th day of Imam Hussein's martyrdom, annually begins from different parts of Iraq towards Karbala and continues until the Arbaeen Day. The great welcome and participation of people in the Arbaeen march, as a cultural arena, made me participate in this event in 2015 and 2016 in order to live alongside the participants in this march for 21 and record my observations, as an ethnographer, during a 240-kilometer walk. In fact, my objective was to study a wide range of human actions and reactions in the cultural and social context of the Arbaeen march. I sought to find the answer to the question that why has this cultural event and gathering has been dramatically welcomed? In other words, what are the cultural products of this event that attract the attention of the audience? Moreover, I wanted to know more about the experiences people acquire and their lifestyle during this march. Victor Turner (1983-1920), following his field studies and collection of documents, expressed his experiences of life and rituals by proposing the theories of symbols and the power of religion in changing social situations and the in-depth and psychological analysis. According to Turner’s theories, it will be explained that people participating in the Arbaeen march, to satisfy their desires and communitas, separate from the everyday life and experience a threshold mode free of social frameworks and relations. This is a form of unity and togetherness in which people are in exactly the same situation and away from social constraints and uniform conditions of the everyday life; something which cannot be touched in normal situations. On the other hand, they find new identities that are sometimes in conflict with components of Bakhtin's Carnival (1895-1975).
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