During my research in my thesis (2011) I found there to be two categories of liminality. One is a temporal phase such as in a rite of passage and the other is a more permanent state. As a temporal phase, liminality is “diachronic” which means it is “a segment within a span of time, preceded by the segment separation and followed by the segment reintegration” (Stein, 1983, p. 47). As a permanent state, liminality is seen as “synchronic”—a layer of the psyche that is always present.
Multiethnic/Mixed
What is Liminal Identity
Initially referenced as the middle stage of ritual by anthropologist Victor Turner (1969), liminality is experienced during a relatively brief period when ritual participants stand at a threshold between the old way of being and the new. During this liminal period, participants are stripped of their social status and experience a sense of ambiguity or disorientation.
In writing my master’s thesis on finding wholeness as a biracial woman (Enders, 2011), I discovered that participants’ experience during the liminal phase resonated with the daily experience of those who are multiethnic, genderqueer, bisexual, and/or intersex. In a world that prefers binary identity, those whose identity lives in this in-between space feel pressure to claim one end of the polarity and reject the other. Rather than being a transitional space, the liminal is, for these individuals, a permanent home (Enders, 2011).