Liminal Transition Research Articles

The Nāṭyaśāstra and virtual metatheatre

ABSTRACT In this practice-based project, workshops were conducted in and out of virtual reality, exploring the transitional processes of the Nāṭyaśāstra, an ancient Sanskrit dramaturgical treatise. This project is an intercultural and technological investigation of ancient tools of liminality and how they can be applied in a virtual theatre. A virtual cave theatre was built to the design of the Nāṭyaśāstra and inhabited with seventh-century farce, Bhagavadajjukam, created in Unity game engine for VRchat, a social VR application. The project posits three positions of focus: (1) Investigating parallels of the Nāṭyaveda and the metaverse, comparing the Nāṭyaveda an ancient spiritual performance space, described in the Nāṭyaśāstra with the modern metaverse, showing them to be spaces of liminal transition in which community can explore conflict and resolution. (2) Exploring the Nāṭyaśāstra's rasa theory, codified emotional performance to engender the liminal self, creating moments akin to virtual anchors. (3) Exploring the metatheatre of the Nāṭyaśāstra applied in the virtual and its parallels to the modern concept of liminal performance. Participants explored these concepts first physically in a performance studio and then in a virtual space. These workshops were recorded, and their experiences discussed and thematically analyzed after.

Gaining Respect and Mitigating Risk: A Qualitative Exploration of How New Attendings Navigate Interpersonal Relationships with Recent Resident Peers.

Physicians moving through training experience changes in personal and professional relationships, which can increase stress, uncertainty, and burnout. Social connection can be an important resource but can introduce complexity and conflict. This study aimed to explore how early-career attendings navigate and manage changing organizational and friendship roles with recent resident peers (near-peers) through this critical transition. We conducted a reflexive thematic analysis of interviews with early-career attendings working with near-peers from the same institution where they trained. Twenty three of 27 (85%) eligible attendings from two United States health systems participated in semi-structured interviews between April and June 2023. Familiarity from working at the same institution where new attendings completed training made it more difficult to command authority. Early-career attendings at times struggled with insecurities about their ability to fulfill their new role and challenges from others in recognizing their new attending identity. These tensions could heighten emotions in the clinical setting and spill over into relationships with residents outside the workplace, impacting social lives and well-being. Early-career attendings engaged in strategies to manage the social realm of their transition with near-peers, including prioritizing their organizational role in the clinical setting and mitigating risks to their professional reputation by creating stronger boundaries between their personal and professional lives. This study provides new insight into how attendings navigate changing personal and professional relationships with recent resident peers and offers strategies on how to manage the social realm of this liminal transition.

The future of work guaranteed: Assembling NEETs in the apparatus of the welfare state

The future of work is partially written in the organisation of the welfare state – particularly in social policies and practices which imagine a vibrant labour market with ever-more employment. Here, we offer a genealogy of the peculiar formulation of the term NEETs, ‘Not in Employment, Education or Training’ as emblematic of a deep cultural and organisational commitment to work. To understand this array of policies, we draw on the Foucauldian concept of the dispositif. We move between the authoritarian valency of the concept as used by Agamben, and the looser Deleuzian assemblage, to investigate the policy, discourses and material structures that guarantee the future of work. NEETS conceptually and practically narrows the broad liminal transition from adolescent to adult into a labour market transition – producing work-ready, employable subjects for any future. The future of work need not be NEETs, but to approach that future we need to attend to the overwhelming policy apparatus and assemblage that holds a post-work future at bay.

Arrival to a fictional total institution

Arrivals have an unexplored significance as a phenomenon in sociology. This article studies depictions of arrivals to art education courses at Swedish folk high schools in fiction. These arrivals are liminal transitions between two states, warranting personal change, either being the solution to a previous problem or creating a problem (to be solved). Many spaces in society have lost their status as total institutions physically and symbolically detached from the rest of society. The rarity of and desire for totalizing milieus create possibilities for self-exploration and self-development in characters, enabling authenticity and revealing truths of social life. The depiction of the folk high school as a total institution of isolation and a liminal space for change is effective in (re-)producing cultural images of the folk high school and as a literary device to contain characters and develop conflicts that arise from the milieu. At the same time, these arrival stories demonstrate the importance of liminality in arrival and suggest that arrival be studied as a general phenomenon to uncover hidden facets of institutionalized social life.

Digital nomad lifestyle: a liminal experience of identity transition

This study contributes to the theoretical perspectives on digital nomad identity. The aim is to go beyond the construction of the nomadic identity framed as identi-ty work in liquid modernity. In doing that, the paper offers an empirical investiga-tion of how knowledge workers construct and perform nomadic subjectivities through liminal work identities in under-institutionalized contexts and symbolic consumption. Drawing on the life history of digital nomads living in Chiang Mai and Bangkok (Thailand), this work concludes that digital nomads know or make the experience that the nomadic lifestyle is not a permanent way of life but a spe-cific stage of their life paths. Digital nomads frame their projects of self-realization through the digital nomad lifestyle as a liminal transition. The digital nomad identi-ty emerges as a temporary and opportunistic assemblage of neoliberal do-it-yourself biographies toward the emergence of a post-nomadic identity. However, the paradoxes and constraints embedded in the digital nomad lifestyle can freeze digital nomads in an objective and subjective permanent liminal condition.

“Trying as Hard as I Can”– Narratives of Failure and Success in the Experience of Housing Insecurity

The housing crisis represents a liminal experience: a loss of the taken-for-granted and the suspension of ontological security has put individuals in a situation of potentiality in which both conceptions of home and of personal identity are open to transformation. Empirically assessing this liminal transition allows us to understand the refiguration processes of both home and subjectivities. This has both conceptual and political implications: with ongoing individualization of responsibility in virtually all spheres of social life, it is no longer possible to assume that the private sphere of home is an arena in which individuals are free and secured from societal forces, pressures, and compulsions. Instead, we might find ourselves in a transient liminal period in which the very meaning and psycho-social foundation of home are being transformed. To understand these processes is not only an epistemological but also a political endeavor, for only by understanding the psycho-social implications of the housing crisis can we acknowledge its embeddedness in and relation to processes of societal individualization, as well as the potential to open up pathways to the emergence of a liminal communitas.

Consumption to compensate for the feeling of “loss of ownership of self” Women’s journeys through the liminal transitions of marriage

AbstractThis interpretive study derives a conceptual framework explaining how Indian women experience a loss of self through the transformational event of marriage. The self‐discrepancy of losing one’s self motivates these women to renegotiate their sense of self through consumption. Data were collected through 76 in‐depth interviews analyzed by a constant comparative method and grounded theory. Our research question is to what degree and in what ways do women in India experience a loss of self upon marriage and, if they do, through what consumer practices (if any) do they attempt to compensate for this feeling of loss? Analysis revealed three common stages in Indian women’s married life (1) marriage as a life transitional event inducing liminality (2) loss of Self: dissonance (3) compensatory consumption as a response to dissonance. Our research contributes to life cycle theory by focusing on liminal transitions. We find that self is a possession that women can lose after marriage in India. Based on these findings we argue that understandings of identity and life cycle must be amended to consider self‐discrepancy and coping processes. We develop a model of consumption that results from a perceived loss of self. This is all part of a process of self‐identity reconstruction. We also expand psychological ownership theory to include ownership of self.

Episodic Organizational Change and Social Drama – Liminality and Conflict in the Change Process

ABSTRACT This conceptual paper draws upon Victor Turner’s understanding of social change as social drama. It develops an interpretive framework for episodic organizational change as a period of liminal transition that is triggered and driven by conflict. Emphasizing the liminal quality inherent in change processes, the social drama is used to generate a conceptual frame to investigate the opportunities and threats in liminal transitions, the various ways to re-establish social order in organizations and the associated role of leaders in liminal times. Promoting conflict’s productive nature for organizational change, the social drama is further used to provide a frame to investigate how social reality in organizations is challenged, developed, crafted, transformed and finally re-constituted through conflict. The article argues that the social drama perspective has the capacity to further reflexive thinking about change processes in organizations.

Institutional liminality, ideological pluralism and the pragmatic behaviours of a ‘transition entrepreneur’

We report the results of a qualitative longitudinal case study that lends credence to the need to reflect further on the micro politics and legitimation processes of practicing “food justice”. The study highlights the ideological pluralism, pragmatism and compromise inherent to the actually occurring experiences of actors involved in organisations ostensibly created to serve a food justice agenda. This has implications for the sort of academic filters prefigured into analytical frameworks for the study of transition processes. Such filters may pre-empt criteria against which practices are judged legitimate or indeed ‘effective’. We draw on two distinct bodies of literature exhibiting useful complementarities and develop an argument around the idea of ‘liminal transition spaces’ where the institutional arrangements of an organisation may be deemed futile or unattainable, but its substitution remains uncertain. Firstly, ‘institutional logics’ and secondly, pragmatist sociology is used to advance the idea of institutional liminality, and to open a debate on the role and long-term sustainability of transition entrepreneurship among pluralist organisations.

The ‘Entreprenoorial’ Journey: Exploring the Liminal Identity transitions of Female Entrepreneurs in

This research contributes to critical entrepreneurship studies by exploring the entrepreneurial journey of female entrepreneurs in rural Pakistan. Despite increasing advocacy for supporting female entrepreneurs in developing countries, female entrepreneurship remains an atypical outlier with entrepreneurship being conceptualised from an androcentric western perspective. In this paper, we propose to use a liminal identity perspective to explore the challenges female entrepreneurs participating in a Pakistani Government program called ‘Entreprenoors’ experience during their transition into entrepreneurship and how they manage that transition. Our qualitative analysis of nineteen female entrepreneurs’ in-depth interviews shows how the Entreprenoors’ evolving identities, fluid legitimacy and limited resources can give birth to and shape subsequent entrepreneurial activities. It is in these liminal transitions that entrepreneurial identities and creative entrepreneurial practices and micro-businesses emerge. Our results expand current understanding of the process of entrepreneurial identity development in liminal conditions, especially among non-western female entrepreneurs and contribute to exploring alternative ways of managing the entrepreneurial journey.

Vygotsky’s Tragedy: Hamlet and the Psychology of Art

Lev S. Vygotsky is one of the major figures of psychology; however, his deep engagement with the arts is less known. This is surprising, given the fact that the arts, and especially Shakespeare’s Hamlet, are present throughout his career. In this article, we argue, first, that Hamlet was a major symbolic resource for Vygotsky in times of liminal transitions, and second, that it is this very deep experience of having been transformed by means of Hamlet that grounds his psychology of art, which aims precisely to show how Hamlet works as a “technique of emotions.” Our demonstration is organized into three main movements. In Part 1, we retrace the historical and cultural context in which Vygotsky grew up as a young man. We emphasize his experiences of liminality and transitions, due to transformations of the social world and his own life. In Part 2, we examine Vygotsky’s proposition itself through a close analysis of his Psychology of art. Finally, in Part 3, we further explicate the relation between art and life at play in Vygotsky’s approach and relate this to Vygotsky’s broader psychology.

Flatpack democracy: Power and politics at the boundaries of transition

AbstractThis paper seeks to critically assess how “radical” sustainability approaches that challenge “mainstream” development trajectories—and politics—are crafted and contested within local government. We explore the extent to which these approaches account for a consolidation, break down or transformation of role boundaries and political identities and their implications for the politics of niche–regime dynamics. In our in‐depth study of Independents for Frome (Somerset, UK), an “independent” group who took control of the town council in 2011 and consolidated a non‐partisan approach within its administrative functions, referred to as its “Flatpack Democracy” model, we take a closer look at adversarialism and the intersection of power dynamics within local government. The findings reveal the capture of local mainstream political institutions by niche “protagonists” through an orchestration and consolidation of transition governance, woven in strategically and opportunistically into new forms of localized political identities at the niche–regime interface, which helped to create a community‐level regime of transition governance. We suggest that informal institutional capital, such as the role of personal ties can impact on legitimacy, accountability, or the validation of sustainability agendas. Our findings also advance debates on transition thresholds within “liminal transition spaces”, interstitial spaces between a previous way of knowing and doing, and a new way. Here ground rules dictating socio‐political norms are unclear, collaborative actions are potentially working at cross‐purposes and/or multiple forms of (transformative) power are exercised simultaneously at distinct moments, or instantiations of transition. That is, there remains a much‐needed theoretical debate around the fragile and imperfect processes of democratization within the everyday politics of transition management.

Adolescent girls’ perceived readiness for sex in Central Uganda - liminal transitions and implications for sexual and reproductive health interventions

Young women in Uganda are at risk of negative sexual and reproductive health outcomes, in part because of sex with older men. Theoretically grounded in the concept of liminality, this paper examines perceived markers of adolescent girls’ suitability for sexual activity. In 2014, we conducted 19 focus group discussions and 44 in-depth interviews in two communities in Uganda. Interviews were conducted using a semi-structured tool, audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Interviews examined markers of transition between childhood, adolescence and adulthood and how these were seen as relating to girls’ perceived readiness for sex. Analysis was thematic. Pre-liminal status was most often accorded to childhood. Sex with a child was strongly condemned. Physical changes during puberty and children’s increasing responsibility, autonomy and awakening sexuality reflected a liminal stage during which girls and young women were not necessarily seen as children and were increasingly described as suitable for sex. Being over 18, leaving home, and occupying ‘adult’ spaces reflected post-liminal status and perceived appropriateness for sexual activity including for girls under the age of 18. Interventions that seek to prevent early sexual debut and sexual activity with older men have the potential to reduce sexual and reproductive health risks.

A narrative inquiry of survivors’ experiences of the time just before and after a cardiac arrest

<h2>ABSTRACT</h2><h3>Background</h3> There is extensive research on factors influencing cardiac arrest, however, there is limited understanding of survivors' experiences of cardiac arrest. <h3>Aim</h3> To explore survivors' experiences of surviving cardiac arrest in the immediate time before and just after the event. <h3>Methods</h3> Using a narrative inquiry approach individual face-to-face interviews were held from November 2016 to June 2017. A convenience sample of four females and thirteen males were recruited from the community using a newspaper article and snowball sampling techniques. Participants were aged between 48 and 92 years and experienced a cardiac arrest between 3 months and 36 years ago. Collected field text were analysed adhering to Clandinin and Connelly's narrative inquiry exploring how physical, social and cultural environment, and time impact and shape individual experiences. <h3>Findings</h3> Narrative exploration of the experiences of cardiac arrest revealed survivors were unprepared and confused as a result of the event. Survivors found themselves in a liminal space, of betwixt and between involving ‘what was' and ‘what will be'. Seven threads were identified: Ordinary to extraordinary, Cardiac pain, Waking up in chaos, Resuscitation pain, Drawing on spirituality, Luck, and Surviving death. <h3>Discussion</h3> The experiences of surviving a cardiac arrest influence follow-up care needed. Nurses and other clinicians need to have a holistic view of the survivor, as the experience of cardiac arrest is an extraordinary time in an individual's life, especially in the immediate period following the arrest. <h3>Conclusion</h3> A cardiac arrest transforms the ordinary to the extraordinary. Surviving a cardiac arrest is confusing, and survivors have to adapt to a new reality resulting in a liminal transition that is complex. Existential questions about luck, spirituality and survival are intense.

ПСИХОЛОГІЧНІ ОСОБЛИВОСТІ ОБРАЗУ Я ВАГІТНИХ

Статтю присвячено вивченню психологічних особливостей образу Я вагітних, що перебувають на різних термінах вагітності. Образ Я розглянуто як установку особистості щодо себе, складно структуроване та динамічне утворення особистості. В структурі образу Я виділено когнітивний, емоційно-оціночний, поведінковий, соціально-перцептивний аспекти та визначено їх функції. Зазначено, що формування та становлення образу Я відбувається в процесі життя, а під час вагітності значно трансформується, переходячи від образу «Я – вагітна» до образу «Я – мати», а потім – «Я і дитина».Розглянуто психологічний бік змін в ідентичності вагітних. В результаті проведеного дослідження визначено особливості емоційно-оціночного аспекту образу Я вагітних, а саме виявлено наступні особливості: виражене позитивне самоставлення і самовпевненість; середній рівень поваги до себе, аутосимпатії та самоприйняття; більшість вагітних виявили самопослідовність, самоінтерес і низький рівень самообвинувачення. Констатовано високий рівень самооцінки вагітними здоров’я, зовнішності, впевненості у собі; адекватна оцінка розуму, здібностей, характеру та загальна самооцінка. У діапазоні соціально-перцептивного аспекту з’ясовано, що найбільш вираженими є середні показники оцінки ставлення, особистісна ідентичність, емоційно-позитивна форма позначення статі. Констатовано, що для більшості вагітних сексуальна роль та учбово-професійна не є важливими у даний період, натомість велике значення має сімейна приналежність. У рамках когнітивного аспекту виявлено, що серед вагітних переважають жінки з: емоційно-полярним типом особистості, високим рівнем рефлексії, позитивними ідентифікаційними характеристиками, вираженою сімейною та персональною перспективою. Для більшості досліджуваних найбільше значення мала сфера сім’ї, вагомим для досліджуваних був також фізичний образ. В межах поведінкового аспекту більшості досліджуваних жінок діагностовано здатність сконцентруватись на собі, стриманість, виваженість вчинків, дипломатичність, уміння працювати зі своєю напругою, зберігати емоційну стійкість. Встановлено, що відчуття безпеки, довіри, впевненості, низький рівень тривоги, ворожості та конфліктності властиві більшості досліджуваних.

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.

The semantics of death and rebirth in the Poturia wedding tradition: the case of transition rites

Relevance of the study. Forms of folk beliefs about death and rebirth back to the archaic times of Ukrainian culture and are an integral part of the mythological consciousness, which is fully reflected in the folk-ritual creativity. In the national scientific thought, the problem of liminal transition is covered in the context of rituals of the family cycle, as well as one of the structural and ceremonial aspects of weddings in Central Polissya. But the issue of the semantics of death and rebirth in the context of the wedding ceremony of local territories is still open and require detailed investigation.Scientific novelty. The article first examines the problem of death and rebirth as an example of the rituals of the Poturia wedding ceremony, one of the least explored ethnic regions of Western Volyn. The article also covers for the first time the results of the author’s expeditionary studies on the territory of Poturia during 2011–2015.The main objectives of the study is to investigate the forms, functional load of each stage of the liminal period, symbols of death and rebirth as integral psycho-physiological aspects of the transition to a new status.Methodology. Cross-curricular and integrative approaches, as well as structural and functional methods of analysis, have played an important role in the study of the problem. The methodology of the study is based on the analysis of the symbolism of the main stages of the Poturia wedding rite in the context of the three-stage theory of Arnold van Gennep and the elimination-integrative theory.Results. It is found that in the wedding system of the Western Volyn region there are all three liminal (transitional) stages, each of which has its own distinct structural and semantic markers. Symbols of death and rebirth have their own peculiarities, functional load and are embodied through various forms of ritual passage on Poturia. On the one hand, the liminal period in a traditional wedding is a multi-stage probationary period, and on the other, it becomes a new, higher social status. An integral aspect of the liminal process is the eliminative-integrative function, which is most clearly is traced again in the context of the bride's transition.This study does not exhaust the depth of the problem. In order to study the liminal transition in Poturia's wedding ceremony, it is necessary to see a detailed analysis of clothing, wedding requisites and the mental and personal rebirth of participants in the wedding celebration in the context of myth-ritual creativity.

Destabilization of Energy Regimes and Liminal Transition through Collective Action in Chile

The transition of energy policy towards fairer and more sustainable paths has centered on the dynamics of destabilization processes in energy regimes. Much has been written about the complex nature of transitions in the sector in 30-40 year cycles, but less work has been done on disruptive destabilizations over shorter periods, especially focussing on how they are produced and intensified. Through a qualitative examination of two failed large electricity projects in Chile, we investigate how collective action can influence the destabilization of an electricity regime through interaction between the day-to-day dramaturgical actions of the so-called communitas and media actors. Both projects, a hydro-dam plant and a coal-fired power plant (CFPP), offer unprecedented examples of how two transnational energy consortium projects were halted, mainly by effective collective actions that occurred within Chile’s neoliberal landscape to combat these energy initiatives. We propose an interpretation of the dynamics of regime destabilization from a dramaturgical-materialistic perspective that allows a new conception of how energy transitions occur. Through this perspective, we shed light on new entanglements, actors and new questions that arise regarding how transitions become real. We propose the mechanisms of i) pressure, ii) obstruction and iii) public overflow to trace the activities that bring a liminal energy transition into view.

Navigating liminality in new venture internationalization

Prior research describes international expansion as a series of discrete steps and notes that taking them threatens new ventures' survival, especially due to unexpected setbacks. Seen through the lens of social science, the source of such threat becomes clearer. In this paper, we argue that internationalization in new ventures involves what social anthropologists call a liminal transition – a betwixt-and-between period lying between the intent to internationalize and the realization of a stable internationalized state. The ambiguous and transitory nature of this liminal transition has the potential to increase the odds of overreach (e.g. a high-cost market entry without sufficient resources). Avoiding the negative influence of liminality – and instead harnessing its positive effect – relies on three sources of support that we refer to as opportunity scaffolding: self-reflective learning, peer learning and consultative learning. We argue that entrepreneurs with personality profiles high in levels of core self-evaluation (CSE) are more likely to utilize the scaffolding like that available in business incubators effectively. This leads to the development of a more reflective mindset, making capability learning more likely, preventing decisions that lead to overreach and reducing the threat to INV survival. However we also strike a note of caution in that at excessive (hyper) levels of CSE, the internationalizing new venture could become the victim of hubris. Emboldened with unrealistically high self-confidence, hubristic entrepreneurs are more likely to rebuff use of scaffolding, leading to a more reactive mindset, increasing the probability of liminal overreach and threatening INV survival. Executive summaryInternationalization represents an important pathway to growth for new ventures. At the same time, the burden of internationalization is considerable since new ventures must learn new capabilities under severe resource constraints to succeed in international markets. Thus we have a tension: internationalization increases the odds of growing rapidly and lowers the odds of survival for new ventures. Therefore, it is important for new ventures' capability learning process to be effective through harnessing network ties and entrepreneurial cognition.However, although we know a lot about what makes international new ventures (INVs) successful, there is a surprising lack of detailed understanding of the transition that these firms make during the internationalization process. Becoming a stable INV involves making sense of new environments and improvising in the face of unexpected setbacks. Previous work has focused more on how INVs fare while pursuing identified opportunities during initial or post-entry internationalization but not as much on how they cope in the transition to becoming a stable INV over time.To address this deficiency we draw upon an underutilized theoretical lens from social anthropology: liminality. Liminality describes the “betwixt-and-between” condition that is experienced during a transition when one is no longer in the original state but hasn't quite reached the new one. This perspective draws attention to both a vulnerability and an opportunity that are simultaneously heightened during transitions: the novelty of the situation can be cognitively confounding and liberating. If a new venture's entrepreneur is overwhelmed by distorted thinking during this liminal period, he or she may lead the INV to take fatal missteps, including overreaching. On the other hand, if the confusion inherent in this process can be contained and the potential creativity of this stage harnessed, then new capabilities can be learned and the potentially treacherous liminal period successfully navigated. Thus liminality theory helps to distinguish between measured and reckless improvisation.Liminal theory also helps us to identify opportunity scaffolding as an important way of avoiding liminality's negative effects by facilitating reflective learning, peer learning and consultative learning in conjunction with mentors. A practical manifestation of such support is the use of business incubators. Where these are not available, entrepreneurs may avail of mentors and peers through other means such as advisory boards or education. Furthermore, entrepreneurial personality in influences entrepreneurs' propensity for using such scaffolding: those with high levels of core self-evaluation (CSE) – confident of their abilities – are more likely to use scaffolding whereas those with low or excessive levels of CSE will tend to rebuff the use of scaffolding.Overall, our conceptualization complements previous work on capability learning with the notion of “transitioning capability” – which is the ability to harness the creativity of liminality while avoiding its confounding potential. This is a theoretical advance over how INV research views the capability learning process. And it has strong practical implications for how international entrepreneurs can thoughtfully navigate liminality, by taking advantage of opportunity scaffolding, being self-aware of limitations and strengths and avoiding overreach.

Being and becoming a “good” qualitative researcher? Liminality and the risk of limbo

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to re-conceptualise “good” qualitative research by discussing the intersection between “good” qualitative research and different identity states of “good” qualitative researcher. It uses the anthropological concept of liminality and related concept of limbo to help illustrate the implications of this intersection.Design/methodology/approachA reflexive and personal confessional account is provided of the author’s “living in” the liminal transition of the identity states from full-time PhD student to full-time early career researcher, questioning the author’s experiences in relation to others and the implications for the social construction of “good” qualitative research.Findings“Good” qualitative research is not just what to do but how to be. “PhD student” is a defined and temporary transitional liminal identity state. It has a clear point of separation (acceptance and registration of student status) and aggregation (“good” qualitative research signed of through thesis and viva). Contrasting with this is the “early career researcher” identity state, any point of aggregation towards “established researcher” is predicated on the unpredictability of publication and delivering impact indicators.Originality/valueThe paper demonstrates unsettling and in-betweenness of “good” qualitative research intersecting with the experience and composition of being a “good” qualitative researcher in the academy. It is important for debates regarding the qualities of academic development from PhD student to established researcher.