Liminality describes the experience of being between two established states, identities, or phases of life.

The word comes from the Latin limen, meaning threshold.

It describes what happens when an existing way of being has been disrupted, but a new one has not yet fully formed.

You are no longer quite where you were, but you haven't yet arrived somewhere new.

Where does the concept come from?

The concept of liminality originates in anthropology.

In The Rites of Passage (1909), anthropologist Arnold van Gennep described major transitions as having three phases: Separation → Liminality → Incorporation

First, a person separates from an existing role or status. Then comes the liminal phase: a period of transition between the old and the new, which we call the in-between. Finally, they enter and become established in a new position.

Anthropologist Victor Turner later developed the concept of liminality further, focusing on the distinctive qualities of this in-between state.

What makes liminality interesting is that it disrupts the structures that normally tell us who we are.

Our roles, routines, relationships, status, and identities provide a sense of stability. When those structures change, we can temporarily lose the certainty they provided.

What happens during liminality?

A liminal period can involve uncertainty, ambiguity, disorientation, questioning and experimentation.

The old identity may no longer feel right, while the new one is still unclear.

This can create a period of identity ambiguity: the previous definition of yourself is becoming less relevant, but a new definition has not yet solidified.

Liminality can therefore be uncomfortable. But it is not inherently negative. Because the usual structures are less fixed, there can also be greater openness to exploration, experimentation and change. You are not simply losing an identity.

You are also creating the conditions in which something different can emerge.

Liminality and communitas

One of Turner's most important contributions was the concept of communitas.

Communitas describes the sense of connection that can emerge between people who are sharing a liminal experience.

When people are temporarily outside their usual roles and structures, some of the distinctions that normally separate them can become less important.

Status, titles, achievements and social expectations can matter less.

What becomes important is: “You are going through this too.” Communitas is therefore different from ordinary community. A community can be built around shared interests, location, profession or identity.

Communitas is formed through shared experience of transition.

It can create a sense of recognition, equality and belonging precisely because people are navigating uncertainty together.

This is one of the reasons liminal spaces have historically been social as well as individual experiences. We don't necessarily need other people to tell us what to do.

Sometimes we need people who understand what it feels like to not know yet.

Why liminality matters

Modern life contains many transitions that don't come with clear rituals, structures or endpoints.

We change identities, relationships, careers, beliefs, communities and ways of living, often without anyone marking the transition for us.

There is rarely a clear moment when someone tells us: “Your old chapter is over. You are now entering the in-between.” Instead, we are often expected to keep functioning as though nothing has changed.

Understanding liminality gives us another way of seeing these periods.

Instead of treating uncertainty as something that needs to be eliminated immediately, we can understand it as a potential and meaningful part of transition.

The in-between is not simply the absence of a new identity, but it is a phase in its own right.

How Pivoters Club uses the concept

Liminality is one of the foundational concepts behind PIVOTERS CLUB.

We are interested in what happens between identities, chapters and ways of living, particularly the period when something has been outgrown but what comes next is not yet clear.

Rather than rushing to resolve that uncertainty, we create space to understand it.

To notice what is changing. To make sense of what is being left behind. To experiment with what might come next. And to do it alongside other people who are also navigating change. The in-between is not only something to move through, it is something we can learn to navigate. And sometimes, we navigate it better together.