Liminal Lunch: Disclosure and Discursion in the School Cafeteria

Abstract

AbstractLiminal spaces operate as thresholds, as spaces “lodged between all … spaces defined and governed in any specific biocultural ecosystem.” While these spaces offer interesting prospects for study, liminal spaces in schools have received very little scholarly attention. In labeling and considering the school cafeteria in U.S. schools as a liminal space, a new way of exploring a liminal “consciousness and imagination” is open to scholars and practitioners. This in‐between space allows students opportunities for discursion and disclosure not generally accessible in classrooms. As anthropologists have maintained, liminal spaces afford individuals freer experiences and opportunities not encountered in more frequented, orderly spaces. Examining these possibilities increases our awareness of the liminality of the school cafeteria, and such an awareness can help students in shaping different conceptions of human flourishing.