From liminal spaces to the spatialities of liminality

Abstract

Geographical engagement with liminality to explore and conceptualise threshold and ambiguous experience is growing, with calls being issued to attend to its spatial qualities, yet it seems difficult to move beyond the application of liminality as an umbrella term to an ever-increasing array of spaces and places despite disciplinary uses of liminality diverging from its conceptual origins as it is applied to broader contexts. My interest is in how we can progress from identifying more and more spaces as liminal to spatialising liminality itself. Here, I engage critically yet constructively with three themes that commonly feature in work on liminality: its reliance on binary thinking, the common association of this binary thinking with hybridity, and the in/discernibility of thresholds. I propose that if we distinguish between liminality arising from a singular binary, multiple binaries and multiple (non-binary) states, we can start to appreciate the diversity and complexity within supposedly singular liminal situations and experiences. Subsequently, by applying such thinking to three previously published papers on liminality by other authors, I propose that we can visualise multiple spatialities of liminality that can be characterised as nested, staggered, scattered and mobile. Overall, I argue that we should be more specific as to how our engagements with liminality differ from its original formulation as a productive step in moving beyond singular ideas of liminal spaces to examine liminality as both multiply spatial and actively spatialising.