Liminality - Types

Types

Liminality has both spatial and temporal dimensions, and can be applied to a variety of subjects: individuals, larger groups (cohorts or villages), whole societies, and possibly even entire civilizations. The following chart summarizes the different dimensions and subjects of liminal experiences, and also provides the main characteristics and key examples of each category.

Individual Group Society
Moment
  • Sudden event affecting one’s life (death, divorce, illness) or individualized ritual passage (baptism, ritual passage to adulthood, as for example among the Ndembu).
  • Ritual passage to adulthood (almost always in cohorts); graduation ceremonies, etc.
  • A whole society facing a sudden event (sudden invasion, natural disaster, a plague) where social distinctions and normal hierarchy disappear;
  • Carnivals;
  • Revolutions.
Period
  • Critical life-stages;
  • Puberty or teenage years.
  • Ritual passage to adulthood, which may extend into weeks or months in some societies;
  • Group travels.
  • Wars;
  • Revolutionary periods.
Epoch (or life-span duration)
  • Individuals standing “outside society”, by choice or designated;
  • Monkhood;
  • In some tribal societies, individuals remain “dangerous” because of a failed ritual passage;
  • Twins are permanently liminal in some societies.
  • Religious Fraternities, Ethnic minorities, Social minorities, Transgender;
  • Immigrant groups betwixt and between;
  • Old and new culture;
  • Groups that live at the edge of “normal structures”, often perceived as both dangerous and “holy”.
  • Prolonged wars, enduring political instability, prolonged intellectual confusion; Incorporation and reproduction of liminality into “structures”;
  • Modernity as "permanent liminality".

Another significant variable is “scale,” or the “degree” to which an individual or group experiences liminality. In other words, “there are degrees of liminality, and…the degree depends on the extent to which the liminal experience can be weighed against persisting structures.". When the spatial and temporal are both affected, the intensity of the liminal experience increases and so-called “pure liminality” is approached

Read more about this topic:  Liminality

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