Theory Of Liminality Research Articles

“I’d like to make a proper go of it but it’s really scary”: the perpetual liminality of informally self-employed women as stigmatized entrepreneurs

This article examines the lived experiences of informally self-employed women in the UK, exploring their marginalized and liminal status amid structural stigmatization. Set against a backdrop of punitive welfare conditionality, and assumptions that self-employment is a straightforward route out of poverty, our research addresses the need for more nuanced studies on poverty, gender, and informal self-employment in developed countries. We draw on qualitative data from 24 interviews with informally self-employed women, analysed using template analysis. We find that these women occupy a paraliminal space where the liminal and liminoid coexist, offering opportunities for agency and resistance. However, this space can become permanent and problematic, as respondents risk criminalization as benefits ’cheats“ if they seek formalization. Our contributions are threefold: First, we use liminality theory and the concept of paralimininality to highlight the complex ”betweenness’ of informally self-employed women. Second, we amplify the voices of these often-overlooked women, applying a gender lens to their experiences of, and responses to, the everyday realities of welfare policy. Finally, we critique the promotion of self-employment as a poverty solution, advocating for policies that acknowledge the unique challenges faced by women who navigate (and are held in) the space between unemployment and formal self-employment.

On the Way to Be(Coming) a Social Worker: Phenomenological Reflections by Social Work Students on Their Final Year as a Site of Professional Identity Exploration

Abstract In the field of social work research and practice, considerable focus has been placed on the preparedness of students as they transition from being students to becoming professionals. However, insufficient attention has been paid to the processes that occur during the final academic year of their training—a critical transition period that requires a deeper examination. Using a qualitative approach, the study examined the phenomenological perspectives of twenty-nine social work students at an Israeli university during the final academic year of their bachelor’s degree, employing the photovoice methodology. Content analysis of the results identified four key characteristics of the final academic year: (1) the liminal-transitional nature of identity work during the final year; (2) separation from the student identity; (3) the doorknob effect; and (4) entering the professional shoes. The research results are discussed and conceptualised within the framework of the theory of liminality, highlighting its relevance to understanding the transition processes that characterise professional identity work. Additionally, the study explores the implications of liminality in preparing students for entering the job market, particularly considering the distinction between being a professional and becoming a professional.

Impact of Liminality in Organic Agricultural Tourism on Well-Being: The Role of Memorable Tourism Experiences as a Mediating Variable

Organic agricultural tourism integrates organic, toxin-free natural environments with agricultural industry and cultural lifestyles, creating a liminal space and experience away from everyday life. This study explores how this environment influences tourists’ memorable tourism experiences and subjective well-being. The research employed a questionnaire survey targeting tourists engaged in organic agricultural tourism in the Hualien and Taitung regions of Taiwan. This study used convenience sampling and collected a total of 440 valid questionnaires from 1 October to 30 December 2023. SPSS and PLS-SEM were employed as the analysis tools. The findings are as follows: 1. Developed scales for organic agricultural tourism liminal space, liminal experience, liminal place, and liminal benefits, validating their reliability and validity. 2. Verified that liminality has a significant positive impact on memorable tourism experiences, which in turn positively affect subjective well-being. 3. Identified and validated the mediating role of memorable tourism experiences in the relationship between liminality in organic agricultural tourism and subjective well-being. 4. Found that liminal experience has the most significant impact on memorable tourism experiences, followed by liminal benefits, highlighting the critical role of liminal experience in tourists gaining benefits from liminal spaces. 5. Expanded the application of liminality theory in tourism-related research, providing theoretical support for how organic agricultural tourism can deepen tourists’ memorable tourism experiences and enhance their subjective well-being through liminality. This study is innovative both in its theme and theoretical contributions, offering significant academic and practical implications for the field.

Third-party application developers and the liminal space experience during digital entrepreneurship development

PurposeThe study aims to embrace the lingering call for more empirical studies that can theorize the role of digital platforms in digital entrepreneurship. Hence, this study seeks to reveal the liminal space entrepreneurial experience of third-party application developers, by investigating how the platform boundary resources promote third-party entrepreneurial actions, as they transition through the disoriented, uncertain and ambiguous processes of digital entrepreneurship development.Design/methodology/approachTo conduct this investigation, an expert interview qualitative method was used. This approach is a well-established technique in the field of social sciences, which allowed a detailed exploration of the theory of liminality. Liminality refers to the transitional phase that individuals or groups experience when moving from one social or cultural context to another. The expert interview method is appropriate for this study because it involves engaging with knowledgeable individuals who have extensive experience and expertise in the subject area being investigated. Through in-depth and unstructured interviews, the experts were able to provide valuable insights and perspectives about the phenomenon investigated.FindingsThe research findings demonstrate that digital platform boundary resources play a significant role in the behaviour of third-party developers’ who engage in the development of digital entrepreneurship in today’s market. The study highlights three ways that show how these resources (software development kit (SDK), API, integrated development environment (IDE), libraries, frameworks) enable third-party developers to create new applications that are used to pursue entrepreneurship in a digital platform, leading to increased user engagement and revenue generation.Originality/valueThe research addresses the critical roles of digital platform boundary resources in digital entrepreneurship development processes. Also, using liminality theory, the research explicated the core experiences of third-party developers as they navigated the challenges and ambiguities experienced in the pursuit of entrepreneurship. Thus, contributing to the existing body of knowledge in literature and practice.

Liminal figures in Marina Carr’s Woman and Scarecrow and Emma Dante’s Vita mia

This article explores the thematic preoccupation with death and dying in the works of Italian theatre practitioner Emma Dante and Irish playwright Marina Carr. Unlike modern narratives that sharply delineate between life and death, Dante and Carr's writings blur these boundaries, featuring characters who exist in liminal spaces between life and death. Drawing on Victor Turner's theory of liminality, this paper examines these "betwixt and between" characters in two plays: Dante's "Vita mia" and Carr's "Woman and Scarecrow." Both plays challenge and reimagine the conventions of deathbed scenes.

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).

NOVICE TEACHERS’ LIMINALITY AND SELF-EFFICACY THROUGH TECHNOLOGY DURING COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic created a social-educational problem in understanding how novice teachers developed self-efficacy through technology amidst distance learning. Exploring the social-educational problem of novice teachers’ liminality and construction of self-efficacy during COVID-19-related school closures is an emerging issue that justifies further research because a gap in research and understanding currently exists regarding this topic. This qualitative study explored how novice teachers developed self-efficacy through technology amidst the liminal first-time experiences of distance learning. To explore this topic, three concepts were used: the theory of self-efficacy through mastery experiences, the theory of liminality, and the theory of innovation. The research questions addressed how novice teachers developed self-efficacy through technology amidst the liminal first-time experiences of distance learning. To collect data for this study, 10 novice teachers in a Pacific Northwestern state were recruited through professional networking to participate in a semi structured interview. Data was analyzed by conducting three rounds of coding and drawing conclusions concerning the research questions. The results of this study affirmed that novice teachers developed self-efficacy via technology in innovative ways amidst COVID-19 school closures. They confirmed that examining the liminal experiences of novice teachers can provide insight into educational improvements for preservice teachers. This study could positively impact social change by better preparing new teachers to use technology innovatively to serve students in the classroom and via digital instruction.

Using theory knitting to conceptualize social phenomena in the design and evaluation of dance programs for people living with Parkinson’s disease

Dance programs for people living with Parkinson’s disease (PwPD) offer participants an opportunity to exercise, engage in artistic self-expression, and form new relationships. While it is understood that the social dimension of dance programs for PwPD contributes to dancer satisfaction and program sustainability, the social mechanisms instrumental to program success are under-examined. Engaging with theory from wider disciplines, or “theory knitting” can help program designers and evaluators examine the mechanisms and contextual factors that make classes socially meaningful with greater detail and specificity. This study identified and examined three theoretical frameworks that program planners and evaluators could use to conceptualize social engagement in dance for PwPD contexts and inform practice. Each theory was assessed for fit using the T-CaST theory comparison and selection tool developed by Birken et al. (2018). As an example, we used anthropologist Victor Turner’s (1970; 1977) theory of liminality and communitas to identify five key areas for fostering a sense of social connection in dance for PwPD contexts: (1) selecting a meaningful dance space (2) creating a joyous atmosphere (3) marking entrance into the liminal time and space with rituals (4) embodying liminality and anti-structure and (5) inverting power relations and embracing fluid roles.

Migrants’ deaths at Europe’s southern border: Cultural psychological dimensions of memory and mourning in Lampedusa

This paper explores undocumented migrants’ deaths, known as border-deaths, in the Mediterranean Sea by adopting liminality theory to memory and border concepts. Bordering, securitizing, externalizing, and militarizing policies have transformed the Mediterranean into the southern border of Europe. Consequently, the Sea has become a submerged cemetery where thousands of people have lost their lives. Particularly, the Italian Island of Lampedusa has become a geopolitical fiat boundary where conflicting securitarian/humanitarian symbolic frameworks compete. The death of migrants has been an ongoing historical issue, resulting a permanent state of liminality. Using empirical data collected through semi-structured interviews and participant observations in Lampedusa, this study aims to understand the cultural psychological dimension of memory from the experiential standpoint of Lampedusans citizens and community. The findings reveal three themes: the primacy of experience, the relational diffidence, and the memorialization/mourning practices act as subjective and collective forms of resistance subverting external oppressing narratives. Moreover, they also serve to differentiate mourners from spectators and to preserve the material functioning of the Lampedusan community by replicating the symbolic order holding it together. Finally, implications for a semiotic-cultural psychological and liminality theory of memory and border studies are discussed.

A Study of Cultural Hybridity and Liminality in the Works of Hala Alyan

The concept of Liminality emerged from the anthropological works of Arnold Van Gennep and Victor Turner. Liminality refers to the "threshold". The liminal stage is a transitional or in-between phase of different characters and situations. In the era of postcolonialism, liminality has been applied in the context of culture. Concept of hybridity was at first used in the field of science and later in postcolonial scenario, it got associated with the mixing of cultures. Liminality theory has put a significant impact on postcolonial studies because it provides a framework for understanding the complex experiences of people who have been displaced and dislocated. In the postcolonial context, liminality and cultural hybridity are often experienced by people who have migrated from one place to another. The migrants face the challenge of adapting to a new culture while also maintaining their own cultural identity. They may also find themselves caught in a liminal state, in between two cultures, feeling like they don't fully belong to either one. On the other hand, they may feel that they belong to both cultures in equal measure and form a new hybrid culture which is mixture of the culture of their homeland and native state. The Palestinian American writer Hala Alyan’s novels and poems are full of such characters and situations which explore the themes of liminality and cultural hybridity.

The space of ‘betwixt and between’: liminality and activism in Keum Suk Gendry-Kim’s Grass(2019)

ABSTRACT The concept of liminality is fundamentally borrowed from anthropology to explore its application in literary and cultural studies, which remains largely understudied to this date. Liminality essentially signifies a state of in-betweenness characterised by significant factors, such as uncertainty, ambiguity, anxiety, loss of previous values, identity-crisis, isolation and dilemma. The present paper intends to investigate the tropes of liminality in the graphic novel as well as its application to understand the process of transformation of the protagonist as expressed through grids, gutters and panels by employing Victor Turner’s ‘Theory of Liminality’. Further, the later part is dedicated to explore the silhouettes of activism using Turner’s concept of ‘anti-structure’, through the theme of vegetation visible throughout the novel. The present work not only attempts to trace the liminality of the protagonist in Gendry-Kim’s Grass(2019) but also ventures into establishing the liminal status of the genre of graphic novel itself. The study, thus, presents us an opportunity to explore one of the aggressively silenced and traumatic histories of ‘comfort women issue’ through the lens of Gendry-Kim’s recently published graphic novel Grass(2019).

A Portrait of the Artist as a Woman on the Threshold: Patterns of Liminality and Communitas in Giovanna Capone’s In My Neighborhood

This contribution carries out a spatial analysis of the short stories and poems collected in Giovanna Capone’s In My Neighborhood (2014), with a twofold aim: exploring the significance of physical and metaphorical liminalities in the development of Capone’s poetics and, on a more theoretical level, outlining an alternative paradigm, based on the concepts of liminality and communitas, to read Capone’s poetry, as well as other contemporary Italian-American literary texts. I identify four sites of liminality in Capone’s work and delve into their relationship with the narrative voice and the role they play in its evolution. This essay reflects on Giovanna Capone’s Bildung and her identity as a queer Italian-American author by re-reading the four spaces described in In My Neighborhood through the lens of Victor Turner’s theory of liminality and Roberto Esposito’s notion of communitas. Esposito’s development of the concept allows for an alternative interpretation of the community of Italian American queer subjectivities created by Capone in the Southwest. Finally, the connection of such community with Gloria Anzaldúa’s formulation of Borderland and ‘mestiza consciousness’ is highlighted as a theoretical counternarrative to the identification of the ethnic queer self as a member of a community defined by borders.

A Theoretically Informed Critical Review of Research Applying the Concept of Liminality to Understand Experiences with Cancer: Implications for a New Oncological Agenda in Health Psychology.

Liminality was described more than 20 years ago as a major category explaining how cancer is experienced. Since then, it has been widely used in the field of oncology research, particularly by those using qualitative methods to study patient experience. This body of work has great potential to illuminate the subjective dimensions of life and death with cancer. However, the review also reveals a tendency for sporadic and opportunistic applications of the concept of liminality. Rather than being developed in a systematic way, liminality theory is being recurrently 're-discovered' in relatively isolated studies, mostly within the realm of qualitative studies of 'patient experience'. This limits the capacity of this approach to influence oncological theory and practice. In providing a theoretically informed critical review of liminality literature in the field of oncology, this paper proposes ways of systematizing liminality research in line with a processual ontology. In so doing, it argues for a closer engagement with the source theory and data, and with more recent liminality theory, and it sketches the broad epistemological consequences and applications.

Spatial Liminality as a Framework for Revitalising Dilapidated Abandoned Buildings in Historic Cities: A Case Study

This paper develops the theory of liminality as a guideline for revitalising disused urban fabrics in historic cities. Since Middle Eastern historic cities exist as a transitional phenomenon, spatial liminality is identified as an epistemological tool for their investigation. This paper sets up a mixed-method approach based on questionnaire surveys and field studies in twelve urban blocks in historic Yazd and Kashan. Using an interpretive historical study, it is verified that, during the premodern eras, spatial liminality has been synonymous with the formation of sense of place/citizenship, mainly generated as a result of the existence of in-between spaces in historic cities, which, in turn, could have facilitated the rites of passage for residents. In a quantitative layer, the correlation between dilapidated abandoned buildings (DABs) (i.e., disused urban fabrics) and sense of place/citizenship is investigated in case studies, which unfolds associations that lack of sense of place amongst local communities could convey to the meaning of spatial liminality. The analysis demonstrates DABs are associated with lack of spatial liminality, contributing to the breakdown of sense of community identification/place. Therefore, DABs need to be reutilized while maintaining their heritage values. The discourse identifies in-between spaces that once facilitated spatial liminality and demonstrates a guideline for revitalising historic cities. This study put forward a theoretical contribution that enables the use of spatial liminality to guide the understanding and management of historic cities.

Holding on or letting go: Inheritance as a liminal experience

Marketing and consumer research has drawn attention to life transitions as critical sites of consumption but has insufficiently explored bereavement, a universal life transition that can involve (un)wanted inheritance, initiating a potential cycle of retention, reimagining or disposal. Life transitions represent potentially transformative moments of consumption when individual consumption can be more positively redirected towards sustainable choices. Using semi-structured interviews and qualitative data, this study critically investigates the cycle of inheritance consumption, informed by Evans’ understanding of consumption with an emphasis on both acquisition and disposal. The study uncovers three liminal stages: separation and detachment; instability, ambiguity and prolonged liminality; and stability and completeness. First, we expand the scope of empirical consumer research by conceptualising inheritance as liminal. Second, we illuminate the inheritance consumption cycle, showing liminal inheritance stages are critical transition moments that trigger complex positive and negative emotional responses, with implications for whether goods remain suspended or pass into further utility. Finally, we extend liminality theory by conceptualising bereavement as a liminal life transition, and call for researchers to study inheritance beyond acquisition, since how inherited goods are retained or divested in liminal moments can have implications for sustainability and may provide opportunities to steer more responsible and fulfilling consumption with an emphasis on limits rather than excess.

At the Dawn of Existence: Aspects of Liminality in Sulayman Al Bassam’s Petrol Station

This article explores the temporal and the spatial aspects of liminality in Sulayman Al Bassam’s play, Petrol Station (2017). Drawing on the theory of liminality, the paper investigates how liminality informed characterization, identity formation, the evasive concept of truth, and the characters’ absurd existence in Al Bassam’s work. It also shows how the author skillfully projects the liminality of geographical locations on the erratic boundaries between the personal and the collective, the literal and the symbolic, identity and loss of identity, faith and atheism, order and chaos, meaning and futility, tragedy and humor, and life and death. Accordingly, the play provides a proficient dramatization of how geographical liminality directly affects subjectivity and creates an apt environment where liminal identities can develop. The article concludes that the characters who managed to overcome their in-betweeness in the play achieved this through their individual determination to transcend the different aspects of liminality. Keywords: Sulayman Al Bassam, liminality, Temporal, Spatial, Absurdity, Identity.

Connected early‐career experiences of equality in academia during the pandemic and beyond: Our liminal journey

AbstractIn this paper, we draw on our subjective experiences as two female early‐career academics during the global COVID‐19 pandemic. While we acknowledge that the pandemic had negative implications for many female scholars due to compulsory telework or increased family responsibilities, we also want to shed light on the empowering experiences shaped by collegial support that became an important part of our pandemic story. We build on the theory of liminality to explain how the events triggered by the pandemic allowed us to break out of our uncomfortable occupational limbo (i.e., feeling “locked‐in” to the identity of a foreign‐born PhD graduate) and, through creating a kind of equality, resulted in some unique opportunities and challenges. During these difficult times, shaped by an increasing fear of us or our family catching COVID‐19, we embarked on a betwixt‐and‐between state that allowed us to grow as academics as a part of a collective.

Examining difficult conversations and transitional identities through Relational Liminality Theory

AbstractFramed by Relational Liminality Theory (RLT), the present study explores difficult conversations as sites for identity negotiation during times of relational change and challenge. Specifically, this study focuses on the liminal period between the “before” and the “after” of upheaval to understand how familial and romantic partners make sense of relational transitions. Analysis of in-depth, semistructured interviews with 110 individuals who represent a broad scope of ethnic-racial backgrounds, sexual orientations, gender identities, and ages illuminates how difficult conversations simultaneously serve as both engines of sensemaking and triggering events. Results reveal three suprathemes: (a) difficult conversations as liminal relational events, (b) making sense of relational liminality, and (c) difficult conversations as sites for relational struggle and strength. Results support RLT’s heuristic value toward examining how partners live within prolonged periods of relational transition and navigate instabilities of betweenness.

Locked in Liminality. Angst und Methode in der Krisenerfahrung der Gegenwart

Against the backdrop of proclamations of a society of fear, risk and panic from the late 1970s to the present, the article takes a lead from fears as productive agents within the ethnographic process. Through the focal lens of pandemic everyday experience, and deploying essayistic ways of thinking and writing, it draws attention to the intersubjective and intercorporeal practice of meaning-making as conceptualised in phenomenology, psychoanalysis and pragmatist semiotics, and outlines its relevance for emergent interpretation and reflexivity. On an interactive micro-level, the essay explores the moment of ‘in-between’ that is sparked by surprise or crisis, and opens a transient ‘third milieu’ where experience can be shared, whilst cultural meaning is in ongoing renegotiation. The idea of this ambivalent space, as marked by indeterminate creative possibilities merging with fear and uncertainty, is followed further through Corona communication and narration, and investigated in its ambiguous effects of consolidating agency, and perpetuating anxiety and ideological exclusion by way of paranoid ‘infection’. The article inquires into the dynamic conceptual potentials of liminality theory, which it transgresses towards a late-capitalist state of permanent exception: What happens when everyday actors find themselves overpowered by paradoxical emotional requirements that cannot be resolved into new sociality? How can ethnographers, with view to their own involvement into the meshes of everyday fears, retain an empathic, yet empirically grounded understanding of pandemic experience and beyond?

Room of her own: Remaking empty nest and creating herspaces in practices of Polish mothers whose children left home

The tension between the traditional scenario, in which women fulfil themselves mainly as mothers, as well as the emancipatory approach to women’s roles reverberates more and more in Polish society. This conflict between various social expectations has a significant impact on women’s experience of picking up the role of a mother, as well as the intensification of identity ambivalence accompanying their departure from said role. This paper describes the stage in mothers’ lives when adult children move out of their family homes. As part of the [blinded for the review] project, the authors have analysed the stories told by 40 Polish women, whose adult children had moved out of the house, leaving behind a void. The moment of entering a new stage of motherhood and womanhood has been told in the context of a private place – their homes. To further highlight the experience of this moment by the women who participated in the study, the authors have conducted an analysis of their stories within the framework of Victor Turner’s liminality theory. In the case of the women, who participated in the study, the experience of liminality does not lead to a new status that would be socially recognisable. Only nine of them – according to the analysis carried out by the authors – experienced, among other things due to owning or changing their own space, the phase of aggregation, which is typical of becoming a woman in a new role – a mother of an adult child who left home. In contrast, their approach towards space and the practices of everyday life became a pointer showing them the way out of the role of mothers and let them change their status, which the sociologists lack a name for, as the authors argue.