Lens Of Liminality Research Articles

Armenia Post-2020: From the Bridge to the Hub?

ABSTRACT This article delves into the impact of the 2020 war against Azerbaijan on Armenia’s agency as an in-between country, using the lens of liminality and ontological (in)security. The study uncovers shifts in the articulation of the liminal Self in relation to the EU and Russian Others and how it is framed as a source of agency in foreign policy discourse in the aftermath of the 44-day war. It is argued that there has been a shift from potential agency as a bridge to constrained agency as a hub in Armenia due to a rupture of the ontological security narrative.

De-migranticizing as methodology: rethinking migration studies through immobility and liminality

De-migranticization is becoming a core strategy for overcoming the fetishization of migrants in migration studies. However, this shift in perspectives raises questions about what categories to use instead. This paper contributes to these debates by considering the potential of studying immobility as a tool for de-migranticization. It looks at immobility through the lens of liminality: as a transitory phase, as a transformative stage and as one which enables epistemological subversion. In doing so, it goes beyond other border spanning terms to offer methodological insights into using immobility and liminality to de-migranticize. The paper suggests that these qualities of reading immobility through theories of liminality has implications for when, where and how to study migration. The empirical case draws on 165 semi-structured interviews with distance education students from Zimbabwe, Namibia and Nigeria studying at the University of South Africa (UNISA).

A threshold for collaborative innovation: exploring the dimensions of liminality in a data economy initiative

Collaborative innovation requires space for different parties to meet, exchange information, engage in dialogue, and eventually create new solutions. Despite the increased scholarly and practical interest, understanding how such spaces are initiated and sustained remains scarce. In this study, we focus on a national data economy initiative to investigate a virtual and mental space where relevant and interested cross‐sectoral parties can join, share information and identify shared interests for research and development in the data economy. We investigate the early phases of collaborative innovation through the lens of liminality and show how individuals' sensemaking narratives manifest the different dimensions of liminality. We contribute to the research on collaborative innovation and spaces by theorising liminality in the context of our paper as a three‐dimensional concept of confusion–clarity, isolation–communal, and stagnation–movement that creates a threshold for collaborative innovation. Our study offers a more nuanced understanding of the less studied, yet critical, early phase of collaborative innovation, hence contributing to the research and practice of the emergence of collaborative innovation.

Liminality as wage penalty for India's women community health workers

AbstractIn this paper, I analyze the experiences of the world's largest all‐women community health workforce through the lens of liminality. Originally used to describe transition from one state to the other, the concept of liminality in the study of work and organizations can frame workers' experiences of being in‐between established structures and roles in varying degrees, times, and/or places. India's ASHAs, or Accredited Social Health Activists, are community women at the frontlines of the state's health care provisioning. But the state does not categorize them as workers or employees. ASHAs are considered volunteers. Instead of salaries, they are paid task‐based incentives. Based on 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork, including 80 interviews, I find that ASHAs' liminal occupational status as ‘paid volunteers’ produces conditions of chronic underpayment and control for them, further lowering their already low wages. This has implications for how we understand the gender wage gap. I argue that we need to consider not just how much women are paid, but how the payment is structured, and how that places marginalized women workers in relation to others in the workplace. Moving beyond whether liminality is a negative or positive experience, future research should delineate the conditions under which liminality is negative or positive.

The Concept of Liminality as a Theoretical Tool in Literary Memory Studies: Liminal Aspects of Memory in Salman Rushdie’sMidnight’s Children

The Concept of Liminality as a Theoretical Tool in Literary Memory Studies<b>: Liminal Aspects of Memory in Salman Rushdie’s</b><b><i>Midnight’s Children</i></b>

Cancer narratives, communitas and liminality

The present study is based on the qualitative exploration of Cancer narratives through the lens of Liminality, the theory that was proposed by Arthur Van Gennep. It was further explored by Victor Turner. The Cancer narratives also show that the cancer patients go through a mental condition called pre-liminal, liminal and post-liminal stages. The liminal stage proves, "a neither here nor there," kind of stage. The study also aims at finding out the how illness can bring a change in an individual's perspective of life. It also aims at finding out whether the disease has been studied in the right perspective. Besides how communitas helps in understanding the cancer condition because those who are not in the lethal range of cancer don't understand what a cancer sufferer has to go through. How cancer influences people of different age, gender and stages of life is also the objective of the study? How the doctors who treat cancer patients feel about their patients because the patients come to the doctor for hope and assurance?

The liminal impact of lockdown on the Baheliya community

ABSTRACT Baheliya, a nomadic tribe, were confined on the outskirts of a village in Madhya Pradesh, India due to the sudden lockdown announced by the government. How does the lockdown impact the nomad community? Using the lens of liminality, this paper details the experience of the community as they struggle between a detached past and an uncertain future. It describes the features of a liminal phase; namely, freedom, egalitarianism, communion, and creativity as experienced by the members from the Baheliya community.

Regulating patient safety during hospital discharges: Casting the Patient Safety Commissioner as the Representative of Order

This article examines the challenges in regulating patient safety during hospital discharges in England through the lens of liminality. Hospital discharges are internationally recognised as being a dangerous time for patients, and yet the role that regulators should play in addressing this has received little attention in any jurisdiction. Liminality’s spotlight on the in-between highlights how the discharge process can give rise to patient safety incidents that fall between regulator’s boundaries. Falling between boundaries results in a dearth of effective regulatory responses to address these incidents. By positioning the new role of Patient Safety Commissioner (PSC) as that of a ‘Representative of Order’, this article proposes a means by which this poorly regulated space could be navigated more successfully. This analysis suggests that the remit of the PSC role be expanded to include improving patient safety with regard to processes – not just medicines and medical devices. The full implications of this are also addressed.

Living in the Borderlands: A story about Liminality and Identity in Mental Healthcare

ABSTRACT This short narrative details a defining moment during my mental healthcare experience and borderline personality (BPD) diagnosis. Through the lens of liminality, I detail my experience of both resisting and valuing mental healthcare including my diagnoses, treatment processes, and patient-provider relationships. Consequently, this narrative underscores my experience living as both clinically abnormal and hesitation to live as normal. Above all, my experiences highlight the role of communication in mental health care, and the way it shaped my personal identity.

From centered to distributed belonging: a study of ‘homing’ among citizens and residents in the United Arab Emirates

ABSTRACT The United Arab Emirates has experienced massive social change within a relatively short period of time since the commercial exploitation of oil began in the 1960s. This has been accompanied by large-scale inward migration, with non-nationals comprising 88.5% of the population and an even higher proportion of the workforce. The attainment of citizenship is extremely difficult and non-citizens’ residence in the country is conditional on their employment, resulting in a high turnover of population. This makes the UAE a fascinating case study of ‘homing’ in the context of a world where mobility, rather than settlement, is increasingly the norm. This article is based on a large-scale, mixed-methods study of homing among both Emirati nationals and resident professionals undertaken from 2018 to 2020. It conceptualises their differential strategies of home-making along a scale from ‘centred’ to ‘distributed’ experiences of home and deploys the theoretical lens of liminality to explore the implications of ‘dwelling-in-mobility’.

Liminal spaces in neurosurgery – tensions between expectations of the patient and their surgeon at the threshold of informed consent

Purpose: The concept of ‘liminality’, describing the universal human experience of transition in status, has been shown to be relevant in addressing the provision of healthcare needs within clinical medicine. Consent may be viewed as a threshold which patients must cross between a state of integration of information to a state of transformation into knowledge. This article reframes gaps in the modern surgical approach to the process of ‘informed consent’ via the lens of liminality, drawing on key illustrative cases from the medicolegal evolution in the UK and Commonwealth. Materials and methods: A focused literature search was performed for informative medical legal cases addressing or contributing to the understanding of “informed consent”. Searches and references to sources of case law were performed using Westlaw and Hein Online databases. Searches for secondary sources for interpretation and discussions of case law and concepts, as well as topics of liminality and autonomy, were performed via PubMed and Academia databases and relevant online resources. Results: The paper organizes the illustrative material using the following approach:- a discussion and dissection of the i) evolution of consent as a duty to warn, comprising a summary of landmark cases, ii) materiality of risks and what a particular patient would wish to know and iii) conceptual relevance of troublesome knowledge, relational autonomy and threshold concepts in learning to key examples in case law and the process of informed consent. Conclusions: Modern surgical practice of informed consent must strive for clarity of mutual understanding. The framework of liminality allows us to understand the in-between states encountered during the patient's journey. An ability to recognize such gaps in expectations, and develop tools to promote transformational learning, would allow the surgeon to evolve from prudent practitioner to patient mentor at the threshold of informed consent.

Liminal spaces and places – Dilemmas in education for newly arrived students

In this article, we analyse dilemmas in education for newly arrived students from a teacher perspective, and contribute theoretical understanding of these dilemmas with the help of the concept of liminality, which refers to any “betwixt and between” situation that cannot be easily categorised. The data has been gathered during a research- and development program at two different schools, during which we identified several dilemmas; organisational, pedagogical and social. If newly arrived students’ situation is viewed through the lens of liminality, it becomes clear that the dilemmas identified will likely continue to arise within the educational system. Recognizing these situations as dilemmas could provide other ways forward in understanding recurring issues, on an organizational, pedagogical and social level.

Changing roles and environments in experiential learning

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to report on the implications of new and unfamiliar roles for educators, students and employers generated by experiential learning (EL) activities. It considers how a series of tensions and instabilities in traditional role identities for each group arise from an expanded definition of university learning environments.Design/methodology/approachThe paper thus uses the concept of liminality, or “in-between-ness”, to explore processes of role transition via EL. This theme emerged from analysis of qualitative data gathered via focus groups and interviews with academic unit convenors, workplace supervisors and students across a range of disciplines.FindingsBecause none of the cohorts were fully supported in or securely ascribed to these new roles, the unsettled nature of EL is argued to be both a key benefit and challenge to educators.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper was based on a small-scale study of a specific EL programme. As such, it could be complemented by longitudinal and broader-scale research across different sites and national contexts, as well as with cohorts that the authors do not canvas here: university administrators, policy advisors and employers more broadly.Practical implicationsThe paper reflects on how higher education institutions can support participants in these new educational settings, as well as raising the question of whether new roles are still emerging from this process.Social implicationsThe paper canvasses impacts of EL on individual participants as well as the sector itself.Originality/valueThe authors believe that understanding EL activities through the lens of liminality provides a new approach to its impact at individual, institutional and social levels.

Between Islam and the sea: A case study of Hezbollah through the lens of liminality

Between Islam and the sea: A case study of Hezbollah through the lens of liminality

Change within the change: pregnancy, liminality and adventure tourism in Mexico

Despite the growing number of pregnant women engaging in outdoor adventure activities, very few studies have explored pregnancy or the specific needs and challenges of pregnant women in tourism research. To fill this gap in the literature, we examine the participation of pregnant women in adventure tourism through the theoretical lens of liminality. Conceptualising pregnancy as a liminal stage in which women are ‘suspended’ between two statuses, opens diverse possibilities to delve into women’s experiences of embodiment, bodily image and control. In this sense, pregnancy is understood as an ‘internal change’, which adds specific challenges to women’s practice of adventure tourism, including bodily changes and different perceptions of risk-taking. Similarly, the context of adventure tourism provides an ideal space to reflect on liminal transitions and the ‘outside changes’ that pregnant women go through in the predominantly masculinised spaces that characterise this tourism segment. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 35 Mexican women who actively pursue adventure tourism and who had engaged in these activities during at least one pregnancy. The analysis indicates the importance of norms and social expectations experienced by pregnant women when doing adventure tourism. The concept of the ‘rhizomatic body’ proved to be a valuable tool when looking at the social taboos, prohibitions and rules that apply to pregnant women in specific sociocultural contexts (in this case, Mexico). By reframing and reconceptualising pregnant women and their practice of adventure activities, the social construction of pregnancy is elucidated. Finally, the study contributes to the understanding of alternative models and experiences of being a woman in gendered spaces, while shedding light on relevant behavioural patterns among pregnant tourists and the sociocultural impacts of these patterns.

No pets allowed? Companion animals, older people and residential care

This article is concerned with a particular site of inter-species relationships. Using the lens of liminality, it examines forced separation of older people from their companion animals when they move...

Lens of Liminality: A Reflection on Faith Sharing in Young Adult Retreat Ministry

This article presents a reflection on a Catholic retreat for young adults, focusing on participation in faith sharing. After describing the retreat, the author incorporates the thought of Victor Turner, primarily his concept of communitas, to explain why a retreat can be a setting which prompts the sharing of such deep testimonies of faith. The cultural forms of symbols, rituals, sacred space, silence, and solitude converge to form a communitas conducive to faith sharing. To conclude, the author offers that using this lens of liminality can help to shape retreats for young adults across the ecumenical spectrum.

How do we make sense of chaos? Navigating health research regulation through the liminality of the Brexit process.

This article examines the Brexit process through the anthropological lens of liminality. As a concept that explains the impact of change and transformation on human experience, it is argued that liminality is an especially valuable perspective to understand better the phenomenon of Brexit, particularly as to how this might impact on the regulation of human health research. A central feature of liminality is its attention to process; that is, the identification of milestone thresholds within a series of events involving change. More particularly, liminality has a degree of predictive power about certain influencing factors on transformational processes and their outcomes. In this regard, the pivotal role of law is subjected to close scrutiny in the period leading up to March 29, 2018: one year before the so-called Brexit Day. The European Union (EU) (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017 was the threshold trigger for the Brexit process, while the EU Withdrawal Bill 2017–2019 has as its objective the shepherding through of the United Kingdom in its departure from the EU. The argument is made that these events are liminal moments in European legal and human history; moreover, lessons from history are used to identify the specific implications for human health research as an area of human activity that will be profoundly impacted by the Brexit process. This analysis also provides a means to reflect on the broader implications of what a disruptive process such as Brexit means for law generally.

Guiding and enabling liminal experiences between business and arts organizations operating in a sponsorship relationship

Through the lens of liminality, this article considers the identity work engaged in by managers working at the boundary of the organization. Liminality has been used to shed light on the ambiguous positions of temporary employees, consultants and project teams. As such, the concept has become synonymous with temporary, transient or precarious work settings. However, in this article I consider the efforts that managers make to set up and co-create the support structure they require to enter into and leave liminal experiences. I draw on a social anthropology to reconsider the movements between these ‘in’ and ‘out’ phases, and introduce two kinds of enabling roles: guide and ally. Through the use of a longitudinal case study research design the article contributes to the delineation between transitory and perpetual liminality, to include the notion of temporary incorporation. In distinguishing temporary incorporation from perpetual liminality, we can shift attention towards the possibilities of incremental learning in limen, where the subject and the context remain subject to change.

Conceptions of students as partners

Engaging students as partners (SaP) in teaching and learning is an emerging yet contested topic in higher education. This study interviewed 16 students and staff working in partnership across 11 Australian universities to understand how they conceptualised SaP and the opportunities they believed SaP afforded their universities. Thematic analysis revealed three overlapping conceptions of partnership: SaP as counter-narrative, SaP as values-based practice, and SaP as cultural change. The findings are first interpreted through the lens of liminality and an ethic of care. This is followed by a discussion of inclusivity of involvement, resistance, and reinforcement of neoliberal agendas despite good intentions. Finally, implications for cautious enactment of both practice and research are offered.