What is liminality?
In its most simple definition, liminality is a state of being “in between.” The word liminality is derived from the Latin word limen, meaning threshold. A person in a liminal state is in a period of transition, a rite of passage, a journey in which they are neither at the beginning nor at the end. Liminality is a state of suspended animation.
In the second half of the 20th century, liminality was fully explored when Victor Turner wrote the book Liminality and Communitas. Turner defined liminal persons as “neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and ceremony.” He further describes the “betwixt and between” in the context of the “realm of pure possibility.”
If liminality is a state of “betwixt and between,” then couldn’t we all be said to be in a liminal state since we are in between birth and death? And, given that, aren’t we all living in a realm of pure possibility?