Betwixt and Between Liminality and Marginality: Mind the Gap offers an interdisciplinary thinking on "the marginal" within society. Using the framework of Victor Turner's earlier notions of liminality, the book both challenges Turner's symbolic anthropology, and celebrates its continued influence across disciplines, and under new theoretical constraints.

Liminality in its simplest forms provides language for meaningful approaches to articulate transition and change. It also represents complex social theories beyond Turner's classical symbolic approach. While demonstrating the enduring relevance of Turner's language for expressing transition, this volume keeps an eye toward the validity of critiques against him. It thus theorizes with Turner's work while updating, even abandoning, some of his primary ideas, when applying it to contemporary social issues.

A central focus of this volume is marginality. Turner recognized that marginals, like liminars, are betwixt and between; however, they lack assurance that their ambiguity will be resolved. This volume explores the dialogic relationship of space and agency, to recognize marginal groups and people, and inquire, without a harmonious resolution, what happens to the marginals? Have race, class, gender, and sexual orientation become the space for thinking about reintegration and communitas? Each chapter examines how marginal groups, or liminal spaces and ideas, destabilize, shape, and affect the dominant culture.

About the Author

Zohar Hadromi-Allouche is assistant professor in Classical Islamic Religious Thought and Dialogue in Trinity College Dublin.

Michael Hubbard MacKay is associate professor of religion at Brigham Young University.

Reviews

Taking liminality as 'the gap between worlds' this fascinating edited collection brings new life to the concept. Building on the understanding of liminality first explored by Arnold van Gennep and later developed by Victor Turner, this book provides exciting insights into the practice and meaning of liminality in a variety of contexts. The thirteen chapters are based on solid, original multi- and interdisciplinary research in several different fields of enquiry ranging from religious communities, dance, arts and crafts to church porches. The book not only acknowledges the founding work of van Gennep and Turner, but through the fresh insights offered bring challenging questions to the fore that serve to develop the concept of liminality. In so doing, this book, a valuable resource for all scholars interested in the betwixt and between, shows the on-going value of thinking with and through the liminal.

-- Hazel Andrews, Liverpool John Moores University

Liminality and marginality are two of the most crucial concepts in the social sciences and humanities. But how do they relate to each other? How can we think of the liminal and marginal - together, apart or in juxtaposition? This volume opens up for those crucial questions via a series of fascinating case studies and conceptual discussions, cutting across space and time. Recommended!

-- Bjorn Thomassen, Roskilde University



Book Information
ISBN 9781793644893
Author Zohar Hadromi-Allouche
Format Hardback
Page Count 326
Imprint Lexington Books
Publisher Lexington Books
Weight(grams) 603g
Dimensions(mm) 236mm * 157mm * 24mm