Liminality, as Victor Turner describes, is “necessarily ambiguous.” Liminal persons “slip through the network of classifications that normally locate states and positions in cultural space… they are betwixt and between…” In-between the threshold-borders of states, to be liminal is to be in a state of change, or stateless.

 

During liminality, identity is in a flux. Liminal persons are in a space of relative chaos to preexisting normal grounds in which they can experiment and negotiate their identity based on its relationships with their environment.

 

If the crossing over the first threshold is not a total change of state – if it maintains permeability with its preexisting state – the liminal person experiences it gradually and ambiguously. Without a clear threshold into liminality, a similar threshold out of liminality is likely to also be ambiguous. No clear beginning and no clear end, the liminal person can be suspended in this state of change – afloat in the betwixt and between.