Liminality has the potential to be a leading paradigm for understanding transformation in a globalizing world. As a fundamental human experience, liminality transmits cultural practices, codes, rituals, and meanings in situations that fall between defined structures and have uncertain outcomes. Based on case studies of some of the most important crises in history, society, and politics, this volume explores the methodological range and applicability of the concept to a variety of concrete social and political problems.
Harald Wydrais a Fellow of St Catharines College at the University of Cambridge, where he has taught politics since 2003, and is a co-founder and editor of the journalInternational Political Anthropology. His books includeCommunism and the Emergence of Democracy(Cambridge University Press, 2007),Democracy and Myth in Russia and Eastern Europe(co-edited with Alexander W?ll, Routledge, 2008), andPolitics and the Sacred(Cambridge University Press, 2015).
Agnes Horvathis a co-founder and acting editor-in-chief of the peer-reviewed journalInternational Political Anthropologyand is a visiting fellow in the Centre for the Study of the Moral Foundations of Economy & Society, University College Cork (Ireland). She is the author or co-author of eight books, including, most recently,Walling, Boundaries and Liminality: A political anthropology of transformations(co-edited with Marius Bentza, Routledge, 2018);Walking into the Void: A Historical, Sociological and Political Anthropology of Walking(co-edited with Arpad Szakolczai, Routledge, 2017), andModernism and Charisma(Palgrave, 2013).
List of Figures
Introduction:Liminality and the Search for Boundaries
Harall