Misfits, Tricksters, and the Potential of Liminality

Liminality is not just a fundamental thread in the fabric of transition, but also a formative and at times romanticized tool for political subversion, social evolution, and personal enlightenment.

When I was twenty years old, I left the United Kingdom, my native land, and moved abroad. Like so many before me, I sought change, adventure, and a feeling of not belonging. I decided to “go east”—Prague to be precise. Driven by an exploratory escapism, coupled with all the predictable cultural clichés, I saw Eastern Europe like many of my countrymen, as a place where the rules did not apply. I thought of it as a place where the peeling facades, cheap beer, and beautiful women would somehow release me from my bondage of Britishness and the cultural norms I longed to leave behind. It was 2005 and the Czech Republic was a place where systemic political corruption wrestled with the hopes and fears of a newly post-communist society. This was a society in transition; a nation caught between one version of reality and another. The future for the Czechs was unsure, but as I watched them stepping cautiously into it, I realized that I too was betwixt and between; in my own liminal space hoping for a transformation.

Now, I wonder: What is the role of departure and vulnerability as vehicles for social change? To what extent do liminal spaces come to define the nature and outcome of transition? To explore these ideas, it helps to understand the concept of “liminality” both in its early usage and contemporary applications. Liminality is not just a fundamental thread in the fabric of transition, but also a formative and at times romanticized tool for political subversion, social evolution, and personal enlightenment. The Hungarian political anthropologist, Árpád Szakolczai, describes what he calls “permanent liminality” as not only a voluntary space of misfit counterculture, but also as a space of constant transience, disenfranchisement, and danger. Yet in this space, deceptive characters or tricksters also emerge—figures who thrive in ambiguity and increasingly influence the dynamics of 21st century life.

Approaching Liminality

The concept of liminality (derived from the Latin limen or “threshold”) was first developed by German-French-Dutch ethnographer and folklorist, Arthur van Gennep, in his largely overlooked 1909 book, The Rites of Passage. Upon its translation into English in 1960, van Gennep’s work gained greater recognition, most notably through the writings of British cultural anthropologist Victor Turner.¹ Van Gennep had sought to understand the nature of societal transition, analyzing how spiritual or religious ritual is used as a means of progression from one stage of life to the next. He divided this phenomenon into three phases: 1) rites of separation, 2) rites of transition, and 3) rites of incorporation.²

Take a bar mitzvah, for example, where prior to the ceremony, the boy prepares himself for separation from boyhood. During the ceremony, the boy is transitioning out of boyhood. And upon completion of the ceremony, the boy has entered manhood. This process is entirely socially constructed, of course, and plays a key role in the boy’s status progression. The important phase for van Gennep and Turner was the secondary phase of transition, where the boy is—however briefly—neither boy nor man, but rather sits between both states in a ritualistic liminal period.³ Other examples of transitory ritual may include weddings, baptisms, and initiations, to name only a few.

More specifically, according to Turner, in this secondary transitory phase, the characteristics of the “passenger” or neophyte are “ambiguous; [they pass] through a cultural realm that has few or none of the attributes of the past or coming state … [they] are neither here nor there.”⁴ The liminal phase is one of transformation and can often be traumatic and disorientating for the subject, “frequently likened to death, to being in the womb, to invisibility, to darkness, to bisexuality, to the wilderness, and to an eclipse of the sun or moon.”⁵ Importantly, while in this ritually induced liminal phase, a master of ceremonies or guide is usually present, providing reassurance and direction for the vulnerable passenger. Upon exiting the liminal phase, the subject reintegrates back into a recognizable space, though their state of being has been altered. There is also an observable shift in the societal expectations placed upon the subject. In this case, we can view liminality as a controlled accelerant or catalyst of social change, as well as a transitory “glue” that binds together the “fixed states” of being. These “fixed states” that bookend the liminal phase are to be understood as “any type of stable or recurrent condition that is culturally recognized.”⁶

For most of its academic life, liminality as a concept was bound to the ritualistic folklore practices of indigenous societies and was generally not considered applicable elsewhere. Since Turner, however, a small but dedicated group of theorists (Thomassen, Szakolczai, and Horváth, et al.) have shown that liminality’s ritualistic origins reveal only part of its potential:

Liminality may perhaps be regarded as the Nay to all positive structural assertions, but as in some sense the source of them all, and, more than that, as a realm of pure possibility whence novel configurations of ideas and relations may arise.⁷

To illustrate, in van Gennep’s ritual liminality, time is finite and the path is known, as is the outcome. The transitory process is carefully managed by the master of ceremonies and other guardians ensuring the formality and success of the ritual. However, if the liminal phase is imagined outside of these ordered confines, by extrapolating it into a larger and more accessible space, then liminality can be placed at the focal point of all social change. This has made liminality a more scalable and widely applicable “master concept,”⁸ relating to individuals, groups, and societies, and in both temporal (moments, periods, epochs) and spatial (zones, borderlands, regions) dimensions.⁹ Thus, this encompasses an entire range, from liminal phases of momentary flux, like changing jobs or going through a breakup, to generations of liminal transition, like experiencing prolonged political instability, or pursuing a life of spiritual enlightenment.¹⁰ Additionally, the transformative properties of liminality are exacerbated if two or more conditions of transition are present. For example, an individual who has recently become a refugee but is going through puberty at the same time.¹¹ Consider the following from Szakolczai:

[W]ar, revolution, or major economic crisis, just like major illness or a new emotional relationship, changes the lives of all those involved. Liminality, however, leads to understanding that such major events literally and effectively transform the very mode of being of the individuals involved.¹²

Here, a distinction should be made between voluntary and involuntary liminality. The latter involves finding oneself in an unstable or unfamiliar period due to unintended circumstances. For example, in the case of a society suffering prolonged political instability, the liminality experienced is neither voluntary nor is its outcome known. In this case, liminality is not ephemeral and may, paradoxically, go on indefinitely, leaving the population in a constant state of vulnerability and flux. The current conditions of war-torn societies and displaced peoples in the unfolding crises in the Eastern Mediterranean provide clear examples of this. Moreover, in this involuntary form of liminality, the presence of a master of ceremonies (or leader) is not assumed, as there may be “nobody [who] has gone through the liminal period before.”¹³

Conversely, a voluntary form of liminality is consciously enacted (as in the case of ritual), with clear goals of personal or cultural advancement. A pursuit of spiritual enlightenment, for example, often requires the subject to actively separate themselves from societal norms and practices. The monk or practitioner remains in this transitioning state until they reach a “higher state”—depending on the faith and methods of worship. Moreover, embarking on a pilgrimage—both a temporally and spatially liminal experience—provides a fundamental contribution towards spiritual growth. As becomes self-evident, the difference between liminality that arrives unexpectedly and that which is induced differ significantly, and yet they share fundamental aspects in their transformative nature.

The Allure of the Liminal

To understand liminality is to understand the vulnerability it induces in the subject. At its most intense, entering a liminal space may be coupled with a charge of adrenaline and a mixture of emotions, from discomfort and fear to pleasure and joy. These feelings often accompany new life experiences or risk-taking and can make the liminal zone an appealing place. Crossing the boundary of what is known into what is unknown is a timeless tale, repeatedly affirmed in literary and popular culture. Whether we think of Saint Jerome wandering into the desert, or Neo choosing the red pill over the blue in The Matrix, engaging the limitations of our world is inherent to the human story. As such, the universal act of stepping outside of one’s comfort zone, or temporarily suspending the norm, has become an informalized ritual across many societies: the music festival, the gap year backpacking, the experimental drug trip or sexual encounter, and the use of transcendental meditation, to name a few. The subject then returns to their routine elevated, ready to reintegrate. In this context, liminality is about self-realization—or a Jungian understanding of individuation in the pursuit of wholeness.¹⁴ Per Szakolczai:

We become “children” again when we leave behind a certain fixed role, status, or identity—that is, when we re-enter a liminal situation. … Being “at the limit” is a genuine Alice-in-Wonderland experience, a situation where almost anything can happen.¹⁵

This usage of liminality as a tool for personal enhancement (or liminoid as Turner calls it) initially reflects van Gennep’s observations regarding his conceptualization of the liminal period—or “rites of transition.” However, the freedom with which liminality is applied here makes van Gennep’s secondary transition rite seem paradoxically “anti-liminal” due to its rigidity and conformity to cultural practice. As in the case of the bar mitzvah, liminality is used by cultural practitioners as a means of control rather than a means of letting go. But liminality is defined by its opposition to the fixed states of cultural norms that bookend it. Thus, when unopposed, liminality becomes a place of counterculture and anti-structure. It is an anti-conformist attitude towards the rigidity of cultural norms that leads many misfits (artists, rebels, bohemians, etc.) to abandon the core of mainstream society in pursuit of the liminality of the periphery. This may also come from a place of necessity due to trauma or fear, where an individual seeks escape from norms that torment them—fleeing the authorities, political persecution, patriarchal structures, oppressive traditions, and so on. The prevalence of American teenagers identifying as non-binary, for example, can be viewed as a reaction to “adolescent liminality,” where the individual is passing from childhood to adulthood. It provides an escape from absolute norms of masculinity or femininity—or even sexuality as such—giving the individual room to breathe, so to speak. In this instance, liminality is less about inducing vulnerability and more about providing security; a feeling of safety shared between members of a new “liminal community” or communitas.¹⁶ Walter Armbrust has the following to say:

When a group of people first enter into liminality … they bond together. Social differences dissolve; class, gender, or ethnic differences for example, may cease to have the same meanings as they do in normative society.¹⁷

This phenomenon is also visible with long-term expatriates. Individuals driven by romantic, economic, educational, or escapist motivations, who over time inherit an acute sense of “misfit liminality.” No longer citizens among fellow citizens, where they were once culturally “known,” they instead find themselves in groups of other “liminals.” Foreignness comes to define their new communitas, while an internationalized form of English sustains it. Individuals with mixed-national identities are common in these spaces as a pursuit of liminal living tends to attract those who do not hold a singular identity. The transience of the space creates an existential tension that can both enlighten and enliven. Life becomes energized by the turbulence of both belonging and unbelonging; where even those things or places that have become familiar have a comforting unfamiliarity about them. As articulated by Ayşegül Savaş in her 2024 novel, The Anthropologists:

And what we wanted above all, what we wanted to find in the city, were people with whom we could abandon the rules even as we were establishing them, those people who could become our family. … We accepted, children that we were, that we would remain foreigners for the rest of our lives, wherever we lived, and we were delighted by the prospect.¹⁸

To idealize liminality, however, would be unwise. Despite its appeal, living in a transient state is not for everyone. A prolonged period of cultural unmooring may lead to loneliness and isolation. Liminality without any ritual structure can become unruly and demanding, carrying with it inherent costs. Liminality also requires a heightened sense of awareness and preparedness from the subject. Failure to adhere to this can lead to corrupting and coercive influences. For example, criminality has a noticeably liminal component to it.¹⁹ This is because liminality suspends norms and conventions. Breaking laws becomes much easier in a space where those laws and their significance have become blurred. Additionally, criminality is commonly associated with individuals considered peripheral to “normal” society. Moreover, the fear of entrapment within a liminal space—a “liminal limbo”—can lead to the emergence of monstrous characters.²⁰ These are characters who thrive in the spaces between, preying on people caught in a perpetual state of uncertainty. Rather than harnessing liminality’s vulnerability for positive transformation, they weaponize it for purposes of manipulation and intimidation. When whole societies find themselves caught in a liminal state, these dangerous characters may masquerade as false prophets of “… a liminal situation where certainties are lost … and tricksters can be mistaken for charismatic leaders.”²¹

Liminal Tricksters and Schismatic States

If liminality were a living thing, it would be a trickster. Made famous as one of Jung’s archetypes, the trickster is a quintessentially transient figure and appears frequently in the mythologies of ancient folklore. Among them, we may count Loki, the leprechaun, Reynard the Fox, Pulcinella, and the Coyote. There are also the Fool, the Madman, the Hangman, and the Joker in the world of Tarot. The trickster is notoriously hard to define. He is a contradictory shape-shifting chameleon with many faces. He may appear as a delinquent or a buffoon, but just as easily a sage or cunning fox. He appears as a lonely outcast, yet can often be found at the center of attention. He is “[the] opposite of a truth-telling prophet;”²² he “cannot give or share, and [is] incapable of living in a community.”²³ The trickster’s main motivation, “lies in perpetuating, rather than resolving, conditions of confusion and ambivalence.”²⁴ Protracted liminal periods can enable tricksters to find their way into positions of leadership, hijacking the role of the master of ceremonies, which in turn can cause society to fall into a schismatic state. The trickster, as if by sleight of hand, “can capture the occasion and institute a lasting reversal of roles and values, making himself a central figure instead of a marginal outcast.”²⁵

The growth of schismatic societies and control by tricksters has been predominately researched by the political anthropologists Ágnes Horváth and Árpád Szakolczai. Both were raised in communist Hungary under the regime of the Soviet-aligned János Kádár, who had come to power after the brutal suppression of the Hungarian Uprising in 1956. The immense challenges before (and after) this period for Hungarians left Szakolczai with an acute desire to understand “the reasons why the lives of [his] grandparents and parents, and their entire generations, were devastated by the world wars and totalitarian regimes.”²⁶ Specifically, he wished to understand how outcasts-turned-dictators, like Lenin, Hitler, Mao, Mussolini, and Stalin were able to find themselves at the center of schismatic societies, running “regimes [that] sustained themselves by playing continuously on the sentiments of revenge, hatred, and suffering.”²⁷ In understanding the “tricktators” of the 20^th century and the environments that nurtured them, contemporary anthropologists have mapped the potential pitfalls of 21^st century politics. Armburst says that:

Trickster politics is more common historically than we have previously recognized. Bringing liminality into the analysis of politics affords us a new and productive way to understand authoritarianism and populism.²⁸

A misguided parallel may be drawn between the “trickster logic” of contemporary leaders and Max Weber’s concept of the “charismatic leader.” Those who claim to be, “endowed with … exceptional powers or qualities … not accessible to the ordinary person,”²⁹ but who paint themselves as “virtuous underdogs” who seek to break from an elitist norm, claiming their supposed victimization reflects the victimization of the people.³⁰ Their charisma flourishes in times of crisis (e.g. revolution, civil war, pandemics, natural disasters, economic collapse, etc.), transitory instability (e.g. authoritarian to democratic), or general societal precariousness (e.g. ideological fissures)³¹ Research into this growing trend of individuals is abundant, including but not limited to: Abdel Fattah El-Sisi,³² Alexis Tsipras,³³ Donald Trump,³⁴ Emmanuel Macron,³⁵ Jair Bolsonaro,³⁶ Matteo Salvini,³⁷ Rodrigo Duterte,³⁸ Viktor Orbán,³⁹ and Vladimir Putin.⁴⁰ The degree to which the aforementioned leaders display trickster logic varies and should not necessarily be likened to the worst actors of the 20^th century. The importance lies in the increased frequency of trickster behaviorisms and the current growth of sociopolitical conditions under which tricksters can gain influence.

As the saying goes, “if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.” Though generalized and with inherent contradictions, the saying reflects a fundamental hazard of liminality. In sociopolitical contexts, this sentiment reflects a growing theoretical concern regarding modern living conditions pertaining to trickster rule. The rationalizing forces of secularized modernity have, over time, made arbitrary many of the cultural anchor-points that once grounded societal cohesion. A neoliberal ambivalence has washed over the atomized urbanite (or “modern stranger”)⁴¹ who—without religion, culture, or commitment—steps unassured into “the false promises of an infinite growth brought about by technological change, for which one only has to give up mindfulness and believe blindly in progress.”⁴² This may be likened to conditions of the late Soviet Union, as in Vaclav Havel’s fictional “Absurdistan”⁴³ or Alexei Yurchak’s concept of “hypernormalization.”⁴⁴ Secularized modernity has conditioned societies to live in a “permanent liminality;”⁴⁵ “a situation where temporary, transitory emergency, or out-of-ordinary crisis situations have become lasting.”⁴⁶ This frequently leaves populations confused and exposed to the influences of those who seek to manipulate them.

Taken seriously, liminality proves itself to be a dynamic and resourceful master concept, built on contrasting tenants of anti-structure and structure; defying norms whilst validating them; and being both enticing and treacherous in equal measure. My own pursuit of the liminal at twenty years old was driven by a youthful search for experience. Liminality enables us to derive meaning through contrast, by seeing our known world from the outside, gifting us a type of out-of-body experience. This perspective inevitably makes liminality seem utopian. The word liminal is often misused in popular media, as a catchall term for “forever young;” where one negates the responsibilities of a structured world. Seeing liminality as only liberation or escapism, however, misses the point. Liminality is a constant force of change whether we seek it or not. As the wheel always turns, it behooves us to take stock of the transformative nature of transient spaces and how frequently they manifest. In confronting the threats of an increasingly impermanent world of shifting powers, values, and norms, it is the acceptance of liminality’s capacity, rather than the denial of it, that will enable humans to better understand the conditions under which they live and the conditions that await them.

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Notes

1. See his 1969 book, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure.

2. Arnold van Gennep, The Rites of Passage, 2^nd ed., trans. Monika B. Vizedom and Gabrielle L. Caffee (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2019), 10–11.

3. van Gennep, The Rites of Passage, 10–11.

4. Victor Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1969), 94–95.

5. Turner, The Ritual Process, 95.

6. Ibid., 94.

7. Victor Turner, The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1967), 97.

8. Árpád Szakolczai, “Permanent (trickster) liminality: The reasons of the heart and of the mind,” Theory and Psychology 27, no. 2 (2017): 231–248.

9. Bjørn Thomassen, “The Uses and Meanings of Liminality,” International Political Anthropology 2, no. 1 (2009): 5–23; Bjørn Thomassen, Liminality and the Modern: Living Through the In-Between (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2014); Bjørn Thomassen, “Thinking with Liminality: To the Boundaries of an Anthropological Concept,” in Breaking Boundaries: Varieties of Liminality, eds. Ágnes Horváth, Bjørn Thomassen, and Harald Wydra (New York, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2015), 39–58.

10. Thomassen, “The Uses and Meanings of Liminality;” Thomassen, Liminality and the Modern; Thomassen, “Thinking with Liminality.”

11. Thomassen, “Thinking with Liminality.”

12. Árpád Szakolczai, “Liminality and Experience: Structuring Transitory Situations and Transformative Events,” in Breaking Boundaries: Varieties of Liminality, eds. Ágnes Horváth, Bjørn Thomassen, and Harald Wydra (New York, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2015), 30.

13. Thomassen, “Thinking with Liminality,” 52.

14. Elisabetta Iberni, “Challenges to the Individuation Process of People on the Move,” in Jungian Perspectives on Indeterminate States: Betwixt and Between Borders, eds. Elizabeth Brodersen and Pilar Amezaga (London and New York: Routledge, 2021), 29.

15. Szakolczai, “Liminality and Experience,” 18.

16. Turner, The Ritual Process, 96–97.

17. Walter Armbrust, guest, and Michael Willis, host, “Apocalymbo: Trickster Politics in the Age of the Pandemic (and Other Crises),” Middle East Centre, University of Oxford Podcasts (podcast transcript), website, 57:34, November 25, 2020, https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/apocalymbo-trickster-politics-age-pandemic-and-other-crises.

18. Ayşegül Savaş, The Anthropologists (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024), 2, 15.

19. Molly Hoey, “Liminal Criminal: Abject Absence and Environment in Junky and The Outsider,” in “Tropical Liminal: Urban Vampires & Other Bloodsucking Monstrosities,” eds. Anita Lundberg and Lennie Geerlings, Special Issue, eTropic 16, no. 1 (2017): 140–148.

20. Robert G. Beghetto, Monstrous Liminality; Or, the Uncanny Strangers of Secularized Modernity (London: Ubiquity Press, 2022).

21. Szakolczai, “Liminality and Experience,” 26.

22. Thomassen, “Thinking with Liminality,” 54.

23. Szakolczai, “Liminality and Experience,” 26.

24. Thomassen, “Thinking with Liminality,” 53.

25. Szakolczai, “Liminality and Experience,” 26.

26. Árpád Szakolczai, Post-Truth Society: A Political Anthropology of Trickster Logic (New York and London: Routledge, 2022), ix–x.

27. Thomassen, “Thinking with Liminality,” 55.

28. Walter Armbrust, Martyrs and Tricksters: An Ethnography of the Egyptian Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019), 4.

29. Max Weber, Theory of Social and Economic Organization, trans. A. M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons (Glencoe, IL: The Free Press, 1947), 358–359.

30. Manussos Marangudakis, “A Study in Charisma and Trickery: The Case of Alexis Tsipras and SYRIZA,” in Modern Leaders: Between Charisma and Trickery, eds. Ágnes Horváth, Árpád Szakolczai, and Manussos Marangudakis (London and New York: Routledge, 2020), 107–132.

31. Armbrust and Willis, “Apocalymbo.”

32. Armbrust, Martyrs and Tricksters.

33. Marangudakis, “A Study in Charisma and Trickery.”

34. Rosario Forlenza and Bjørn Thomassen, “Decoding Donald Trump: The Triumph of Trickster Politics,” Public Seminar, April 28, 2016, https://publicseminar.org/2016/04/decoding-donald-trump-the-triumph-of-trickster-politics/. Archived at: https://iris.luiss.it/retrieve/e163de42-64e8-19c7-e053-6605fe0a8397/Decoding%20Donald%20Trump.pdf.

35. Helen Drake, “Political Leadership in Contemporary France: The Case of Emmanuel Macron,” in Modern Leaders: Between Charisma and Trickery, eds. Ágnes Horváth, Árpád Szakolczai, and Manussos Marangudakis (London and New York: Routledge, 2020), 157–171.

36. Osvaldo Javier López Ruiz, Fabiana Augusta Alves Jardim, and Ana Lúcia Teixeira, “The Trickster Logic in Latin-America: Leadership in Argentina and Brazil,” in Modern Leaders: Between Charisma and Trickery, eds. Ágnes Horváth, Árpád Szakolczai, and Manussos Marangudakis (London and New York: Routledge, 2020), 133–156.

37. Daniel Gati, “The Failure of Democracy in Italy: From Berlusconi to Salvini,” in Modern Leaders: Between Charisma and Trickery, eds. Ágnes Horváth, Árpád Szakolczai, and Manussos Marangudakis (London and New York: Routledge, 2020), 172–190.

38. Vicente L. Rafael, The Sovereign Trickster: Death and Laughter in the Age of Duterte (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2022).

39. Zoltán Balázs, “Viktor Orbán’s Leadership: The Prince, the Political Father, and the Doomed Trickster,” in Modern Leaders: Between Charisma and Trickery, eds. Ágnes Horváth, Árpád Szakolczai, and Manussos Marangudakis (London and New York: Routledge, 2020), 191–210.

40. Mark Lipovetsky, Charms of the Cynical Reason: The Trickster’s Transformation in Soviet and Post-Soviet Culture (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2011).

41. Beghetto, Monstrous Liminality.

42. Ágnes Horváth and Árpád Szakolczai, The Political Sociology and Anthropology of Evil: Tricksterology (London and New York: Routledge, 2019), 17.

43. Árpád Szakolczai, Post-Truth Society: A Political Anthropology of Trickster Logic (New York and London: Routledge, 2022).

44. See also HyperNormalisation, directed by Adam Curtis (BBC, 2016), https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04b183c.

45. Árpád Szakolczai, Reflexive Historical Sociology (London and New York: Routledge, 2000).

46. Árpád Szakolczai, Post-Truth Society: A Political Anthropology of Trickster Logic (New York and London: Routledge, 2022), 1.