Liminality (from the Latin word līmen,
meaning "a threshold") is a psychological, neurological, or
metaphysical subjective, conscious state of being on the "threshold"
of or between two different existential planes, as defined in neurological psychology (a "liminal state") and in the anthropological theories of ritual by such writers as Arnold van Gennep,
Victor Turner, and others. In the anthropological theories, a ritual,
especially a rite of passage, involves some change to the
participants, especially their social status.
The liminal state is characterized by ambiguity, openness, and indeterminacy.
One's sense of identity dissolves to some extent, bringing
about disorientation. Liminality is a period of transition where normal limits
to thought, self-understanding, and behavior are relaxed - a situation which
can lead to new perspectives.
People, places, or things may not
complete a transition, or a transition between two states may not be fully
possible. Those who remain in a state between two other states may become
permanently liminal.
Communitas
During the liminal stage, normally accepted
differences between the participants, such as social
class, are often
de-emphasized or ignored. A social structure of communitas forms: one based on common humanity and equality rather than recognized
hierarchy. For example, during a pilgrimage, members of an upper class and members of a
lower class might mix and converse as equals, when in normal life they would
rarely converse at all or their conversation might be limited to giving or
receiving orders.
Structure
Anthropologists are currently in debate over whether the
liminal stage of rituals has an absence of structure (anti-structure) or
"hyper-structure", or whether both are possible. In anthropology,
liminality can also represent an experience that places one in unfamiliar
surrounds.
Liminality in rituals
In the simple example of a college graduation
ceremony, the liminal phase can actually be extended to include the period of
time between when the last assignment was finished (and graduation was assured)
all the way through reception of the diploma. That no man's land
represents the limbo associated with liminality. The stress of accomplishing
tasks for college has been lifted. Yet, the individual has not transitioned to
a new stage in life (psychologically or physically). The result is a unique
perspective on what has come before, and what may come next.
It
can include the period between when a couple gets engaged and their marriage or
between death and burial, for which cultures may or may not have set ritual
observances. Even sexually liberated cultures would make it strongly taboo for
an engaged spouse to have sex with another person during this time, versus the
milder taboo of cheating on a lover.
When
a marriage proposal is initiated there is a liminal stage between the question
and the answer during which the social arrangements of both parties involved
are subject to transformation and inversion; a sort of "life stage
limbo" so to speak in that the affirmation or denial can result in
multiple and diverse outcomes.
Getz
(2007:179) provides commentary on the liminal/liminoid zone when discussing the
planned event experience. He refers to a liminal zone at an event as the
creation of "time out of time: a special place". He notes that this
liminal zone is both spatial and temporal and integral when planning a
successful event (e.g. ceremony, concert, conference etc).
Liminality in time
Twilight serves
as a liminal time, between day and night. The title of the television fiction
series The
Twilight Zone makes
reference to this, describing it as "the middle ground between light and
shadow, between science and superstition" in one variant of the original
series' opening. The name is from an actual zone observable from space in the
place where daylight or shadow advances or retreats about the Earth. Noon and, more often, midnight can be
considered liminal, the first transitioning between morning and afternoon, the
latter between days.
Within
the years, liminal times include equinoxes when
day and night have equal length, and solstices, when
the increase of day or night shifts over to its decrease. Where the Quarter days
are held to mark the change in seasons, they also are liminal times.
New Year's Day,
whatever its connection or lack of one to the astrological sky, is a liminal
time. Customs such as fortune-telling take advantage of this liminal state. In
a number of cultures, actions and events on the first day of the year can
determine the year, leading to such beliefs as First-Foot.
Many cultures regard it as a time especially prone to hauntings by ghosts -- liminal beings,
neither alive nor dead.
It
can also mean a "threshold" in time and space, the middle ground
between more than one entity without being either entity. The energy of both
entities meets at this spot. The top of a mountain- in between the sky and the
earth. Seashore- in between earth and ocean. Midnight- for those 60 seconds it
is neither the past, present, nor future. These are all Celtic symbols that are
related to spiritus munda, which is the collective unconscious.
Liminality in states of consciousness
Another example of liminality can
occur when someone wakes from dream sleep and in a hypnopompic
state of mind is unable to distinguish if a vaguely recalled dream actually
occurred.
Liminality of beings
In reality illegal immigrants (present but not "official"), stateless people,
intersexual or transgender
people, bisexual people
in most contemporary societies, and those of mixed ethnicity or
accused but not yet judged guilty or not guilty, are liminal. Teenagers, being
neither children nor adults, are liminal people. The trickster and
related archetypes embody many such contradictions as do many popular culture
celebrities.
The category could also hypothetically and in fiction include
cyborgs, hybrids between two species, shapeshifters.
One could also consider seals, crabs, shorebirds, frogs, bats, dolphins/whales
and other "border animals" to be liminal. It should come as no
surprise that these liminal creatures figure prominently in mythology as
shapeshifters and spirit guides.
Wounds are liminal in that a wound is
in constant flux, either getting better or getting worse. It is a site of healing
or infection (or both, simultaneously). Menstruation is a condition in which
(like a wound) the boundary between the inside of the body and the outside of
the body is broken. Sex is a liminal act.
On an even more cosmic level, we have
those judged both living and non-living, such as the human fetus in the abortion debate,
those in a Persistent Vegetative State, undead characters and Schrödinger's cat. Plants such as seaweed (between sea
and land) and mistletoe (between earth and sky) are not only liminal
themselves, but are used in liminal rituals such as healing.
Liminality in places
These can range from borders, to no man's lands and disputed territories, to crossroads to perhaps airports or hotels, which people pass through but do not
live in. In mythology and religion or esoteric
lore this can include
such realms as Purgatory or Da'at which as well as signifying
liminality some theologians have denied actually existing, making them, in some
cases, doubly liminal. "Between-ness" defines these spaces. For a
hotel worker (an insider) or a person passing by with disinterest (a total
outsider), the hotel would have a very different connotation. To a traveller
staying there, the hotel would function as a liminal zone.
Examples in fiction include the Interzone, the Wood between the Worlds and, as mentioned, The Twilight Zone (1959). In this television series, the Twilight Zone
does not appear as an actual literal location, making it both a place and not a
place at the same time, and therefore also doubly liminal. Similarly, on the
television show Lost, the Island is revealed to be in
liminal space, constantly shifting through spacetime while being physically
rooted somewhere in the South Pacific Ocean.
Doors, windows, springs, caves,
shores, rivers, volcanic calderas, fords, passes, crossroads, bridges, and
marshes are all liminal. Oedipus (an adoptee and therefore liminal) met his
father at the crossroads and killed him; the bluesman Robert Johnson met the devil at the crossroads,
where he is said to have sold his soul. Major transformations occur at
crossroads and other liminal places, at least partly because liminality—being
so unstable—can pave the way for access to esoteric knowledge or understanding
of both sides. Liminality is sacred, alluring, and dangerous.
Liminality in folklore
There are a number of stories in folklore of
those who could only be killed in a liminal space: Lleu, could not
be killed during the day or night, nor indoors or outdoors, nor riding or
walking, nor clothed or naked (and is attacked at dusk, while wrapped in a net
with one foot on a cauldron and one on a goat). Likewise, in the Mahabharata, Indra promises not to slay Namuci and Vritra with anything wet or dry, nor in the
day or in the night, but instead kills them at dusk with foam.
Liminality in ethnographic research
In ethnographic research, the
researcher is often in a liminal state when he or she is both participating in
the culture and observing the
culture. The researcher must consider the self in relation to others and his or
her positioning in the culture being studied.
In many cases, greater participation
in the group being studied can lead to increased access of cultural information
and greater in-group understanding of experiences within the culture. However
increased participation also blurs the role of the researcher in data
collection and analysis. Often a researcher that engages in fieldwork as a
"participant" or "participant-observer" occupies a liminal
state where he/she is a part of the culture, but also separated from the
culture as a researcher. This liminal state of being betwixt and between is
emotional and uncomfortable as the researcher uses self-reflexivity to
interpret field observations and interviews.
Some scholars argue that ethnographers
are present in their research, occupying a liminal state, regardless of their
participant status. Justification for this position is that the researcher as a
"human instrument" engages with his/her observations in the process
of recording and analyzing the data. A researcher, often unconsciously, selects
what to observe, how to record observations and how to interpret observations
based on personal reference points and experiences. For example, even in selecting
what observations are interesting to record, the researcher must interpret and
value the data available. In order to explore the liminal state of the
researcher in relation to the culture, self-reflexivity and awareness are
important tools to reveal researcher bias and interpretation.
Liminality in popular culture
- Lost
(2004–2010) is a U.S television show whose central characters are revealed
to be living in a liminal space, between The Island and Reality.
- The
Twilight Zone (1959–2003) is a U.S. television anthology
series.
- Rant: An Oral Biography of
Buster Casey (2007), a U.S. novel by Chuck Palahniuk, makes use of liminality in
explaining time travel.
- The
Terminal (2004), is a U.S. film in which the main
character (Viktor Navorski) is trapped in a liminal space; since he can
neither legally return to his home country Krakozhia nor enter the United
States, he must remain in the airport terminal indefinitely until he finds
a way out at the end of the film.
- Offshore,
a British novel by Penelope Fitzgerald,
whose characters live between sea and land (docked boats), becoming
liminal people. Liminality is a major theme in the novel.
- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,
a play by dramatist Tom Stoppard, which takes place both in a kind of
no-man's-land and the actual setting of Hamlet.
- .hack//Liminality
where Harald Hoerwick, the creator of the MMORPG "The World",
attempted to bring the real world into the online world, creating a hazy
barrier between the two worlds; a concept called "Liminality".
- Beast Quest is
the name of a series of children's books written by a team of authors from
Working Partners Ltd. under the pseudonym Adam Blade which thematise
liminality by exploring the ambiguous nature of the space between beasting
and questing.
Liminoid
Turner coined the
term liminoid to refer to
experiences that have characteristics of liminal experiences but are optional
and don't involve a resolution of a personal crisis. A graduation ceremony
might be regarded as liminal while a rock concert might be understood to be
liminoid. The liminal is part of society, an aspect of social or religious
ritual, while the liminoid is a break from society, part of play. Turner stated
that liminal experiences are rare and diminished in industrial societies, and
is replaced by liminoid experiences.
