Self in a Space of Liminality: Toward the Rationale for Transformative Strategies of Higher Education

Abstract

Transformative strategies for the development of higher education, pointed out in the list of key educational competencies of the 21st century by international organizations of various levels, are associated with the processes of becoming and transformation of individuals as integral subjects of cognition and action within the framework of communicative strategies for the formation of a global civil society. The implementation of transformative educational strategies in a meaningful aspect requires inter- and transdisciplinary methodologies to research the process of transformative adult learning aimed at developing an “integral person”, and not just its rational-cognitive aspects.
 Within this holistic approach, questions arise about the nature of the transformative changes in the basic ontological and anthropological components of the educational process in the context of the transition epoch, namely, the becoming a global transcultural civil society. In order to clarify the features of such transformations, the dynamics of the phenomena and concepts of identity and self is examined in terms of a change in the conceptual landscape of culture. Various disciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches to their definition are analyzed. The relevance of the concepts of multiple identity (as an open permanent identification process) and the transversal self (as a process-dialogue unity of differences) in the liminal space at the global and individual levels are substantiated.