liminalityn.
/ˌlɪmᵻˈnalᵻti/, U.S. /ˌlɪməˈnælədi/ Cultural Anthropology.
A transitional or indeterminate state between culturally defined stages of a person's life; spec. such a state occupied during a ritual or rite of passage, characterized by a sense of solidarity between participants. Cf. communitas n. 2.
ΚΠ
1964 V. W. Turner in Proc. Ann. Spring Meeting Amer. Ethnol. Soc. 4 The period of margin or ‘liminality’.
1969 V. W. Turner Ritual Process iii. 95 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.
1972 R. D. Abrahams in T. Kochman Rappin' & Stylin' Out 238 Liminality is the acceptance, by the group and especially by the participants, of a sense of community in which social distinctions are rejected in favor of a classless state.
1988 P. Brown Body & Society (1989) xiii. 272 The controlled liminality of pilgrimage allowed women to experience..the heartening freedom of the desert.
2001 M. V. Wiley Arnis xvii. 125 The social aspect of collective liminality is known as communitas.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2009; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1964