Liminality

The Rites of Passage and Liminality Originally developed by anthropologist Arnold van Gennep in the early 20th century in his book Rites de Passage, the term liminality refers to the concept in which participants are in the threshold stage of disorientation and suspension from the previous social norm that they were used to. When an individual goes through a rite of passage—also coined by van Gennep—he is cut off from his “old life” and is born again into a new person. However, before he can fully

Liminality, or the liminal space, can be an effective literary tool used to represent the disparity between ones perception of themselves and the perceptions of those around them, as well as form one of the truest reflections of an author’s episteme. Defined as “the in-between zone” where a person or object is simultaneously part of two categories as well as neither, liminality is found across a variety of literary texts in one form or another. Katherine Mansfield, of New Zealand and England and

spirituality of the insular Celts (du Toit, 2007). Two Celtic sniglets for liminalities was thin places and thin space. Thin, for the island Celts, designated liminality. Thin spaces, like beaches and mountaintops, and thin times, such as dawn and dusk, thinned the veil drawn between the natural and supernatural. Such insular Celtic ideas parallel various Psalms which focus on waking and sleeping as liminal notions. Indeed, liminality, as abstracted zeitgeber, makes life and death appear less restrictive

Theoretical Framework: Recent anthropological research has focused on the understanding of immigrants on their host country through the concept of liminality. The cultural anthropologist Victor Turner in his classic book The Ritual Process describes “liminal entities […] are neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by custom, convention and ceremony” (Turner 1969). The American Anthropologist Clifford Geertz grows Tuner’s definition and defines it as:

Van Gennep and Turner has introduced to all of us a different perspective in looking at and analyzing not only pilgrimage, but also how people understand and form ideas surrounding the change in states and statuses, and give meanings to the different parts of the journey. Through this transition, we will find that many of the societal roles of those who take on the journey are suspended. Particularly, Van Gennep discusses the 3 rites of passage using territorial passages to explain how the journey

Before explaining the concepts of liminality and Othering and their connection to volunteerism, I will first explain how volunteerism is scientifically defined and approached. The term volunteerism is a coalescence from the words volunteering and tourism. Stebbins and Graham (2004) define volunteerism as volunteering “in an organized way to undertake holidays that might involve the aiding or alleviating the material poverty of some groups in society, the restoration of certain environments or research

references to liminal space, and for good reason. As Raskolnikov descends into a metaphorical liminal space-- a purgatory between the murder and consequences-- and eventually ascends and redeems himself, their prominence mocks his stagnation in liminality. In the book’s beginning, Raskolnikov believes that certain moral boundaries demand to be broken. Symbolically, while scouting the Ivanovna’s complex, he climbs a staircase "dark and narrow (a back stair). He had known that all before. He had gone

engaging in the ritual. As soon as they walked in the room, and even after the ritual was over, there was a sense of solemnness and reverence that people exhibited while in that space. When it comes to liminality, this whole ritual exhibited a process that could be categorized under the three stages of liminality; separation, transition and incorporation. From the very beginning the ritual began with two distinct forms of separation. As we entered the building we were separating ourselves from society and

ritual as it could promote transformation in an individual and is not a conformational event. The following essay discusses this ritual in two parts, firstly examining Turner 's discussion of Rites of Passage and ritual particularly Separation, liminality and Aggregation themes. Secondly the essay will suggest what this particular ritual does for identity and community and suggest that rituals, more broadly, remain essential to contemporary life. Overall, this essay will argue that Turner’s discussion

From the very first line of Shakespeare’s Hamlet the work instils a feeling of unknowing in the audience. This feeling sets such a strong tone that it continues to permeate throughout the play, from the figure of the ghost and its stage directions to the transformation of the royal palace into a harrowing prison. By setting up a tone of “unknowing” – the unknowing of the afterlife and the unknowing of the true character of others – the space of the stage becomes a liminal space where all characters