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Liminality Liminalité

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Definition

A term that etymologically speaking refers to the threshold of a house, that appeared at the beginning of the 20th century in anthropology research to designate the changes of status performed during the rites of passage. The experience of liminality has spatial and temporal dimensions. It can be applied to a variety of subjects: individuals, groups, societies and civilizations.

Cite: “Liminality”, Performascope: Interdisciplinary Lexicon of Performance and Research-Creation, Grenoble: Université Grenoble Alpes, 2021, [online]: http://performascope.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/en/detail/177845

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Created : 2021-06-14.

Last modified : 2022-06-29.

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Quotation

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« Betwixt and between here or there. Not fully transitioned from one thing to another. A doorway is a liminal space, because it marks the boundary between inside and outside, between one room and the next. A caterpillar undergoes a liminal transition period when wrapping itself in a cocoon. A highway is a liminal space between starting point and destination. An airport is a transition point between here and there. »

“Liminality”, Cyborg Anthropology.com, [En ligne] : http://cyborganthropology.com/Liminality (11/03/21)


« The attributes of liminality or of liminal personae ( threshold people ) are necessarily ambiguous, since this condition and these persons elude or slip through the network of classifications that normally locate states and positions in cultural space. Liminal entities are neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and ceremonial. As such, their ambiguous and indeterminate attributes are expressed by a rich variety of symbols in the many societies that ritualize social and cultural transitions. »

Victor Turner, The Ritual Process. Structure and Anti-Structure, Ithaca : Cornell Paperback, 1977 [1969], p.95

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Sthephen Bigger, « Victor Turner, liminality and cultural performance », Journal of Beliefs and Values, 30, 2, 2009, pp.209-212, [en ligne] : https://www.researchgate.net/publication/248998505_Victor_Turner_liminality_and_cultural_performance (06/05/21)

Franziska Hoppen, Liminality and Philosophy of the Presence. A new Direction in Political Theory, Oxon : Routledge, 2021

Teodoro Patera, « Liminalité et performance : de l’anthropologie de Victor Turner aux Folies Tristan », Perspectives médiévales, 35, 2014, [en ligne] : https://journals.openedition.org/peme/5025 (06/05/21)

Arpad Szakolczai, « Liminality and Experience. Structuring transitory situations and transformative events », International Political Anthropology, 2, 1, 2009, pp.141-72

Victor Turner, « Liminal to Liminoid », in Play, Flow, and Ritual: An Essay in Comparative Symbology, Rice Institute Pamphlet, The Rice University Studies, 60, 3, 1974, pp.53-92, [en ligne] : https://scholarship.rice.edu/handle/1911/63159 (09/06/2021)

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