According to the Oxford English Dictionary, liminal (adj.), in its rare usage, is: "Of or pertaining to the threshold or initial stage of a process. A more specific definition of liminal as it pertains to psychology states: "Of or pertaining to a 'limen' [in Latin] or 'threshold.'" These two definitions recognize the threshold, being the "beginning of a state or action, outset, opening," as somewhat synonymous with the liminal state. Liminality, which has not yet been acknowledged by the OED as a word, refers to the quality of an object that has entered this process [link] as well as the quality of the process, itself.
Foundations in Ritual
The notion of a liminal period was first introduced by ethnographer Arnold van Gennep in his exposition of the "rites de passage," or rite of passage "which accompany every change of place, state, social position and age."[1] For van Gennep, a rite de passage consists of three stages: the separation, or detachment of a subject from its stabilized environment; the margin, which is an ambiguous state for the subject; and the aggregation, in which the passage has completed and the subject has crossed the threshold into a new fixed, stabilized state. The liminal period of the rite de passage is the second stage that is characterized by being passed through; i.e., the purpose of this period is to transfer the subject from the original site to the new site.
According to anthropologist Victor Turner, who expands upon van Gennep's classification of the stages in the rites de passage, liminality is an "interstructural situation."[2] His interests lie primarily with rites of passage that especially have to do with initiations, because he believes that these processes best exemplify the transitionality, or becomingness of the liminal state. Turner stresses the importance of the concept of transition in liminality as he describes the nature of the subject as somewhat incorporeal, dissolved, or even "invisible" during this period.[3] The subject, while neither located in the departed stage nor in the arrived-at is still reliant on the presence of both stages. This "transitional-being," or "liminal persona," is characterized by a series of contradictions.[4] As having departed but not yet arrived, he is "at once no longer classified and not yet classifiedÉneither one thing nor another; or may be both; or neither here nor there; or may even be nowhere."[5] This subject, during the liminal stage, is "'betwixt and between' all the recognized fixed points in space-time of structural classification."[6]
The Liminal Being
Turner notes that "Liminality is the realm of primitive hypothesis, where there is a certain freedom to juggle with the factors of existence."[7] Accordingly, folklore and popular culture have allowed many different manifestations of liminal beings to emergence as representations of ambiguous identity.
Monsters: Ghosts, werewolves, and vampires all can be considered liminal beings because of the dualistic relationship of their characterizations. Ghosts, while dead, still appear in the 'world of the living.' The most common image of a ghost is of a translucent figure: one that is not quite here and yet not all gone. Usually ghosts are prevented from 'crossing over' into the world of the dead because they have some sort of 'unfinished business' that sill ties them to the living world. Werewolves, at least during the full moon, are neither man nor wolf, but a hybrid between the two that acquires traits from both species. Vampires, like ghosts, are characterized in their liminality by their dependence on life and death and physical location in existence. They are the contradictory "undead," physical beings walking around the earth unalive. They feed off of the blood of the living and have the power to raise more undead.
Young Adults: Teenagers fall under the category of liminal beings through their biological and social functions. Puberty and adolescence are commonly defined as transitional periods between childhood and adulthood. Constant physical changes, for example, make it impossible to root a teenager in a single pictorial description for an extended period of time. Also, most teenagers carry the confused burden of having to behave in a more mature, adult fashion (as opposed to acting like a child), and yet are restricted from accessing all of the rights awarded to legal adults; this is commonly referred to having "all of the responsibility and none of the perks." Hence teenagers are relegated to the liminal state in which they have to somehow configure their own precarious identities. Other young individuals, particularly college and graduate students, who are legally considered adults, but still hampered by certain dependencies (such as financial support from parents or lenders, or still being enrolled in school instead of having a full-time job), can also claim a liminal identity.
Roland Barthes, in The Eiffel Tower and Other Mythologies, addresses in his essay entitled "Poujade and the Intellectuals" the cloud-like state of Poujade's intellectuals, who float above the ground, never setting foot on the ground, and yet never reaching the heavens. These "intellectuals" in Poujade's mind are academics and technicians who believe themselves to be superior to the average citizen, but are too cowardly to mark themselves politically. They, according to Barthes' exposition of Poujade's opinion, "lackÉroots in the nation's heart. The intellectuals are neither idealists nor realists, they are murky creatures, 'dopes.'"[8]
Media as Liminal
As it is both betwixt and between, "everywhere and nowhere"[9], conceptualizing media as liminal does not seem too far-fetched. A medium, according to the OED is "Something which is intermediate between two degrees, amounts, qualities, or classes." The liminal state, as the second stage in a rite of passage, is "a middle state." Mediation[link], as a process, could run synonymous with the liminal period of ambiguous, "vague" transition.[10] When thinking about the purpose of a medium, i.e., what it is supposed to achieve through its "middle ground between materials and the things people do with them," liminality is its quality.[11] Both Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner locate the liminality within an event: ritual for both of them, and initiation more specifically for Turner. Therefore, where one can most concretely locate liminality within all of media is the media event[link].