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Copyright of Cahiers Elisabethains: A Biannual Journal of English Renaissance Studies is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The objective of the article is to look at the formation of identities, as their cultural forms and practices grew with multiple and diverse tendencies. This led to the occurrence of different trends of thought that were seen to bring together different traditions. These came with their own string of tensions and accommodations. This becomes important as we understand a region's history and culture. These multiple cultural tendencies and communities can be looked at in terms of cultural categories and, therefore, the concept of a 'cultural fault line' between the two religious communities. These could also be looked at as processes of 'exchange' 'sharing' 'borrowing' or processes connected to liminality and 'liminal' traditions, as has been noted by scholars. One such community is the Jasnathi Sampraday, which belonged to the remote region of the Thar Desert. Guru Jasnath, the founder of the Jasnath Sampraday, belonged to the peasant community of the Jat cultivators. The article looks at the hagiography, the devotional literature, the teachings that emphasised environmental concerns and the practice of Ratri Jagran (night vigil), whereby the Jasnathi Siddhs explain the Jasnath banis to their followers of the Jasnathi Sampraday. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the historical development and dynamics of political and administrative structures in regions of a fragmented empire that cannot be simply described as marginal 'mouseholes'. Rather, it should be acknowledged that these spaces were part and parcel of a wider area (the Byzantine insular and coastal koine) , which encompassed coastal areas as well as insular communities promoting socio-economic contact and cultural interchange. More importantly, they also boasted a peculiar set of material indicators suggesting a certain common cultural unity and identity. The koine coincided with liminal territories and the seas on which the Byzantine Empire retained political and naval rulership. Such liminal territories showed varied – yet coherent– administrative infrastructures and political practices on the part of local elites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the in-betweenness and the temporal freedom in leisure and intercultural experiences, particularly in the outdoor setting of a sailing expedition. An ethnography study was conducted to explore the in-betweenness of liminoid leisure space and self-other interculturality during an EU-exchange tall ship sail-training voyage. The physical confinement of the sailing ship blurred the boundaries of the participants' perceived and experiential leisure space, the pre-determined ship schedule and routines provided an unconventional sense of time fluidity, and the assembled socio-cultural diversity onboard formed a stage of unfamiliarity. The finding reveals that the spatial, temporal and relational features on a sailing ship enabled individuals to go through leisure hybridity together and co-negotiate meanings that promote diversity and understanding, participants' perceived and temporal freedom and satisfaction, and relational harmony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital games are one of the most engaging forms of media. Players can have a first-hand experience and the possibility of feeling immersed within a digital setting where agency is exerted. This paper seeks to understand the role of digital games as new means of communication and their potential to convey messages that may defy gamers to question the moral grand narratives that shape contemporary societies. In a moment when many countries have opted to close or limit the circulation in their borders, it is important to think about the role played by the border as a historic liminal entity for the representation of societies and communities, distinguishing those who belong from those who do not. The representation of the border in digital games have tended to follow one of the main tropes explored in other media: the border as a physical space that set boundaries between different nations and different regions of the world. In order to assert the potential of digital games to offer a more comprehensive representation of the border as a liminal space, the case of Papers, Please! (2013) will be analyzed. Based on a qualitative methodology, having content analysis as primary data collection method, the paper intends to contribute to the discussion on how history may narrativized and, eventually, reinterpreted in digital games. Papers, Please! analysis will be centered on the relationship that is set between player and border, that is presented as a liminal space where the game's action takes places entirely. Moreover, the paper intends to discuss the role that has been played by digital games in the representation of serious topics and how they have evolved as communication tools beyond their role as entertainment products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Darbai ir Dienos is the property of Vytautas Magnus University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This research article explores the themes of diasporic identity and the unfixed self in Olga Tokarczuk's novels Flights and The Books of Jacob. Drawing upon concepts of liminality, hybridity, and deterritorialization, the article examines how Tokarczuk's characters navigate the complexities of displacement, cultural negotiation, and the ever-shifting nature of selfhood. Through close textual analysis, the article argues that Tokarczuk's characters embody the fluidity and dynamism of diasporic identities, constantly challenging fixed notions of belonging and embracing a sense of selfhood that is unmoored from singular locations or narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Widely called the "hermit kingdom," North Korea is one of the most reclusive countries in the world. In particular, for South Korea, although its past and present are deeply entwined with North Korea, physical access to the country is strictly denied. This study focuses on how contemporary South Korean artists have constructed North Korea as a liminal space in which reality and fiction, past and present collide. It analyzes contemporary artworks that attempt to de-border the other Korea. These works include Kwon Hayoun's Model Village (2014), a video centered on a reconstruction of an uninhabited North Korean propaganda village on the edge of the DMZ, and Park Chan-kyong's Sets (2000), a series of slides of a North Korean film studio that recreated the streets of Seoul and a South Korean movie set that included a replica of P'anmunjŏm. Based on the unique relationship between the two Koreas, the paper argues that contemporary South Korean art embodies the elusive reality of North Korea that defies the clear understanding of its truth. In addition, it shows that the ambiguous representation of North Korea is a compelling reminder of the long history of national division and the psychological and physical distance between the two Koreas. This de-bordering expands the epistemological frame through which to perceive Korea beyond that of a binary Cold War order framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tourist's role in engaging with difficult heritage is described as a liminal one, in a state of "limbo" outside of their ordinary lives, embracing the challenging historical narratives presented by difficult heritage while also maintaining a certain detachment. This liminality parallels the cinematic experience, where the audience temporarily resides in a similar state of in-betweenness, delving into imagined traumatic pasts from the safety of the present. This paper contributes both to literature on difficult heritage and to intangible cultural heritage to reveal the need for a more nuanced appreciation of intangible difficulty heritage when concerning genocide and war. It presents the 'Dealing with Trauma through Film' project, with a particular emphasis on its materiality within the context of the German-Namibian conflict and genocide, regarded as difficult heritage. Nelson's concept of liminality plays a pivotal role in understanding the dynamic between the film audience and the experience of the actors involved. The primary focus here is on the production of the German movie 'Der Vermessene Mensch' (The Measures of Men and outlines the intricate representation of intangible aspects of difficult heritage related to conflict through the medium of film. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2018, a steady stream of media reports has described the rapid expansion of tissue banana plantations in the Waingmaw area of Kachin State in Northeast Myanmar, noting the widespread environmental degradation and disenfranchisement of local residents. We conducted field research in two villages connected to banana plantations, interviewing residents, plantation workers, government officials, and health workers. Using assemblage theory, we analyze the local political ecology of food production, and how the particularities of local geography, especially in peripheral regions, result in different practical political settlements. These settlements involve a range of different actors including ethnic armed organizations, foreign merchants, government officials, and local brokers. Arrangements of power in border areas are implicit and negotiated, rather than explicit and formalized. These are appropriated through new spatial arrangements (e.g., banana plantations) and spatial relationships (e.g., migrant workers from Rakhine State) in which older identities and modes of living are redefined. A key component of this frontier assemblage is the banana itself, in particular, the practice of cultivating imported tissue strains which are reliant on imported technology and fertilizers. This, in turn, influences the form of the assemblage and power relations within it, illustrating the critical role of material and technological elements within assemblages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes, drawing on conceptual tools from communication philosophy and cultural anthropology, the integration of ritual behavior into advertising texts. The first part of the paper presents a general approach to the presence of ritual behaviors in promotional communication. Next, a conceptual framework is outlined, enabling a nuanced exploration of the presence of ritual in advertising texts. For this purpose, the concept of liminality, as addressed by Victor Turner, and Culinau's analysis of the concept of subjective power and its link to rites, with their integrative and compensatory functions, are primarily utilized. Subsequently, three frequently employed archetypal figures in branding, characterized by a shared trait of reticence towards social norms, are presented. The final part of the paper focuses on how the incorporation of ritualized behaviors contributes to shaping the advertising message. These behaviors, by presenting a ritual sequence easily repeated by the audience, become effective tools in conveying the significant message of the advertisement and associating the brand with profound meanings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper interrogates the value of silence, located within liminal spaces in Sarnath Banerjee's Doab Dil (2019). Structured as an informal graphic essay, Doab Dil proffers ironic commentaries on nature, culture, cities, the countryside, history, fiction, work, sleep, insomnia, popular culture, and the quest for meaning in life. In the process, Doab Dil combines text and drawing to construct a postmodernist intertextual mural of juxtaposed quotations, descriptions, and metaphysical reflection on the values of contemporary culture. At the points of these juxtapositions, liminal spaces are created that are characterised by a dense silence. The centrality of the liminal in the creative imagination of Doab Dil is evident in the title that signposts the fertile tract of land found at the confluence of two rivers. Recollecting Homi Bhabha on the liminal as a horizon of possibilities, this paper explores the ways in which the poetic representation of liminality constructs political spaces of critique, which draw on the silence between confluent thoughts on diverse themes for critical reflection. Through literary criticism, the paper investigates the poetics and politics of possibilities in Doab Dil positioned within liminal spaces, and the role of silence as a representational strategy for a metaphysical commentary on reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay addresses the aftermath of Dobbs, the Supreme Court Decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, by looking to what can be learned from other countries, specifically psychoanalytically-informed praxis. Focusing on the role of psychoanalysts in particular, and psychoanalysis, more generally, in Argentina, I make the case for a psychoanalytic political praxis. This engages a Black feminist commitment to reproductive justice, a more expansive frame for politics that can embrace intersectional aims across a range of policy issues connected to the human right to have or to not have children, in a social and political context that supports the common good and facilitates human and environmental flourishing. In doing so, I highlight psychoanalysis's somewhat hidden history of political commitment and engagement, particularly in terms of the interpersonal approach. I argue that only a sustained commitment from progressive forces, including among those in psychoanalysis, can forestall the further encroachment of authoritarian, anti-democratic forces operating in the US. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ontological incompleteness revealed by quantum physics and the ontological stability imposed by the "augmented reality" of games such as Pokémon Go have become increasingly important references in Žižek's materialist assessment of the contemporary Other. This paper analyzes a current online phenomenon, known as "the Backrooms," that converges with these recent concerns in ways that are perhaps more interesting and provocative than films such as The Matrix and The Truman Show that, Žižek contends, lead one to a conceptual dead-end. That is, we might conclude that there is an authentic reality beyond the simulation or that there is no 'real' reality, just a variety of semblances - either way, we foreclose the real that, according to Žižek, inheres as incompleteness and inconsistency. "The Backrooms," which began life as a cryptic and disquieting post on the forum 4chan before inspiring subreddits, video games and YouTube videos - content that is predominantly created and shared by the 'gen x' demographic - ex-sists in a reality that is unstable and, so goes its lore, can be accessed through glitches and 'quantum tunnelling.' With this one example, we shall see how culture is responding to the same political and scientific developments that Žižek's materialism is also working through. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China Miéville’s novel, The City and the City (2009) introduces a detective story in Besźel and its topolganger, Ul Qoma. The relationship between the two cities is a strange one: even though they occupy the same place physically, they work as two separate autonomous states. By following the main character’s investigation of a young girl’s murder, the reader also gets to inquire the true nature of the cities. The narrative was adapted to screen in 2018 (The City and the City, BBC2), and thanks to the difference between the two mediums, painted a different picture about the liminal nature of the two cities. In this paper, I am going to examine how these two platforms represent the liminal nature of Besźel and Ul Qoma, and how they depict Borlú’s liminal transgression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Croatian Journal of Ethnology & Folklore Research / Narodna Umjetnost is the property of Institute of Ethnology & Folklore Research and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The continuous professional learning of academics as university teachers is a national imperative in South Africa. At our university, a Postgraduate Diploma in Education (Higher Education) was introduced in 2015 with the aim to professionalise university teaching through a formal qualification. Students (i.e., candidates) must transition in two ways: firstly, from being disciplinary specialists to being students again; and secondly, into the community of scholarly teaching in higher education. This article examines the liminality experienced by candidates as they navigate the programme and learn to belong to a new scholarly teaching community. Drawing on empirical data collected from graduates and programme coordinators, the authors track candidates’ shifting identities and showcase how, though initially turbulent and unsettling, the process of learning to belong to a new teaching identity can be rewarding and enriching. The authors conclude by discussing the conditions required to enable candidates to acquire a strong university-teacher identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Together with the numbers of refugees rising globally, those seeking asylum have increased dramatically, as more countries grant temporary status to those awaiting determination of their refugee petitions. As asylum seekers, they dwell in legal liminality, having neither the civil rights or service access of citizens nor the rights of those officially recognized as refugees. In countries like Israel, where immigration policies indefinitely prolong such legal liminality, asylum seekers are afforded only "temporary collective protection" without entitlement to services. To the extent that aid is available, it is provided by an informal network of NGOs. Within this context, a semi-formal network of "mediators" has arisen from among asylum seekers. Having acquired the host country's language, they are employed by NGOs and volunteer in their own communities, providing not only language translation and interpretation assistance, but also intercultural translation. Using in-depth, semi-structured interviews of 14 mediators, this study explores the professional, communal and personal impacts on mediators of prolonged legal liminality. It shows how language can be a significant tool that can alter perceptions of civic status and challenge legal liminality. Formally leveraging the skill set of mediators by cooperating with and directly employing them in government offices, can help to stabilize an especially vulnerable and transient community, benefiting both the state and asylum seekers. • The number of asylum seekers globally has increased significantly. • In some countries, they experience prolonged legal liminality, with limited rights. • Informal language and cultural mediators bridge the community-state space in Israel. • Interviews with mediators in Israel explore the impacts of legal liminality. • Language alters the perception of civic status, challenging legal liminality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analysed the social relations of Polish children during the SARSCoV-2 pandemic. The period of isolation and remote learning was approached as a transitional time using Victor Turner's concept of liminality. The concept offered a new perspective on children's experiences during the regime of health protection constraints and the resulting limitations. The research material was collected using focus group interviews with 41 urban children aged 7 and 9 to describe liminal features of their everyday life and characterise their social interactions. The findings reveal the risks and the potential of the pandemic period with respect to the social world and its construction by children. The most important observation concern is that educators and caregivers exploit children's aversion to mediated interaction and assistance in reconstructing the world of actual interaction of children using creative rituals within the family and at school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stag party tourism is a highly ritualized contemporary rite of passage that is associated with drunken excess and norm-breaking toxic masculinity. Despite contravening societal rules and encouraging deviant behaviour, stag parties are generally tolerated. This paper explores how stag tourism is a constructed rite of passage and a scripted liminality, packaged by destination marketers, staged by service providers, and performed enthusiastically by participants. Analysis of interview and observational data suggests that the bachelor movie genre is the inspiration which informs expectations and experience. Indeed, the degree of inter-textuality between on-screen (reel life) and off-screen (real life) performances confirms that this is a scripted liminality, informed not by elders or peers, but by Hollywood film makers. We conclude with a discussion of a series of contributions and implications for practice. • Explores stag tourism as a constructed rite of passage and a scripted liminality. • Finds that stag parties constitute a scripted liminality, informed by movies. • Uses 57 in-depth interviews with stag participants and service providers. • Includes data from participation and observations at 28 stag events. • Explores how the tradition of stag is driven by movie culture representations. • Explores attendee expectations and roles. • Explores aspirational components and outcomes of stag parties. • Offers contributions regarding deviant behaviour and on liminality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Adopts a strategy-as-practice approach to understand how local practices shape large-scale transformation outcomes. • Theorises digital transformation in policing as liminal and explains how this occurs due to the incomplete, contested and localised transformation outcomes. • Derives propositions that explain the relationships between the main concepts of liminal digital transformation. • This theorisation provides a nuanced understanding of digital transformation in public sector and questions the possibility to achieve large-scale transformation in this context. For many public sector organisations, digital transformation is a strategic priority. However, there is limited understanding of how everyday practices shape such large-scale transformation. To address this, we adopt a strategy-as-practice approach to capture the 'doings' of strategy on the ground and the role this plays in large-scale transformation. We conducted an in-depth interpretive case study on UK policing and collected rich data from multiple sources. This is an important context as the police face increasing demands to deliver digital transformation while maintaining a high level of service to protect the public. Our findings reveal that public sector organisations like the police find themselves in a state of liminal digital transformation. We conceptualise this liminality as incomplete , contested, and localised , due to the specific conditions in the strategy practices: openness of strategy, ambiguity in rules and norms, and interdependencies across organisational boundaries. We theorise this relationship in a model of 'liminal digital transformation' and propose a set of propositions. By doing so, our research introduces a novel perspective on digital transformation in the public sector and how it is shaped by everyday strategising practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Periods of localised social unrest are increasing in frequency and are usually described in terms of crisis. Events that unfold during these periods are often recounted retrospectively once a sense of stability has emerged. In contrast, this article contributes an empirical analysis of identity work undertaken by a group of individuals amid an unfolding crisis by drawing on interview data collected in one Hong Kong University across December 2019 and January 2020. We frame our analysis with the concept of liminality which draws attention to the space or state of in-between-ness occupied by people as they navigate and work to transition from 'before' to 'after' a time of great change. We explore linguistic representations of liminality by analysing the use of metaphors in these interview narratives. Metaphors, in this context, are considered key markers of complex cognitive and psychological processing. Findings of this analysis indicate the dominance of (dis)orientation to time and uncertainty about the future which are associated with liminality and identity work. • Incidences of crisis are increasing globally. • Little is known about how people work to make sense of unfolding crisis events. • We draw on interviews collected in Hong Kong in November 2019 and January 2020. • We use liminality and metaphors to explore the narration of crisis. • Findings highlight a sense of disorientation and uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • The research shows the applicability of liminal logic and photovoice to urban geopolitics. • 'Liminal logic' explains how residents navigate multiple rationalities in contested cities. • Visual methods, like photovoice, reveal multilayered attitudes and perspectives. • Photovoice helps residents express themselves easily and envision future possibilities. • Comparative analysis of photovoice reveals constraints for disadvantaged groups. Photography and other visual methods have become invaluable tools in peacebuilding and urban studies, enabling citizens to explore their circumstances and voice grievances. These methods provide insights into spatial dynamics, aesthetics, and identity, crucial for understanding individual perspectives. While their role in capturing urban liminality is acknowledged, further investigation is needed, especially in contested cities affected by ongoing conflicts. In such cities, visual methods can offer significant insights into liminal spaces, narratives, and logic, shedding light on urban geopolitics. Focusing on Jerusalem as a case study, this research explores how visual methods, particularly photovoice, illuminate the liminal aspects of urban geopolitics. Through a comparative analysis of focus groups (Israelis, Palestinians, and bi-national) within a photovoice project, the research uncovers the complex nature of liminal logic, especially how city residents integrate and balance various rationalities such as urban and national, gender and religion, age and profession. However, the analysis also reveals constraints on applying liminal logic and potential change among disadvantaged groups, particularly Palestinians, highlighting the need for future examination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative study explored the impact of the 2017 Mycoplasma bovis incursion and its management on farmers in southern New Zealand. Eighteen farmers and farming couples were interviewed about their experiences. Analysis of interview data evoked van Gennep's notion of liminality with its journey through distinct phases associated with ambiguity, confusion and uncertainty. Farmers described separation from usual farming practices during the incursion management process. The disruption to farming rhythms was characterised by long periods of waiting for test results, stand-down periods, and compensation claim outcomes. In emerging from the incursion, participants reflected on altered identities and relationships within rural communities and with the government, including greater awareness of biosecurity issues. The liminality of M. bovis was anchored upon the farm. However, the liminal space of M. bovis lingered long after the official exit of the farm from liminal status. • Southern New Zealand farms became liminal places and spaces under Mycoplasma bovis biosecurity restrictions. • The on-farm intervention was a liminal journey for affected farmers. • Affected farmers described being altered by their liminal experiences. • The post- M. bovis farmscape was distinct to the pre- M. bovis farmscape on affected farms. • The liminal space of M. bovis extended beyond the official exit of the farm from liminal status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Cynewulf's Elene — an Old English verse narrative in the Inventio Crucis tradition, which survives in the Vercelli Book — the figure of Judas stands out among the Jews of Jerusalem as the only person present who can answer Helena's questions about the location of the True Cross. Although critical consensus has considered Judas to be an archetypal representative of the Jewish population of the city, this article argues that the poem actually constructs the religious race of Judas as a strangely liminal one, shifting him back and forth between the categories of Jew and Christian. Drawing upon concepts from medieval critical race studies and work on Jewish-Christian relations, it examines how Judas's racial liminality lays the groundwork for the narrative's culminating anti-Semitic fantasy of effortless universal conversion; furthermore, it offers a critique of allegorical reading practices in medievalist scholarship, and underscores the need for deliberate distancing between the medieval text and the modern reader. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Oikos: Lithuanian Migration & Diaspora Studies is the property of Lithuanian Emigration Institute and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Logos: A Journal, of Religion, Philosophy Comparative Cultural Studies & Art (08687692) is the property of Logos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The aim of this article is to present the phenomenon of stalkerism (a kind of illegal tourism) in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. The article investigates the specificity of the stalker experience through the concept of transgression (Kozielecki 2007). The article broadens the perspective on the tourism experience by using a psychological concept that has not so far been widely used in tourism studies, even though it refers to classic ideas (liminality, rites of passage, transformation). The genesis and specificity of the phenomenon of stalkerism in the context of the development of organized tourism in the Zone are presented. Then the transgressions of stalkers during exploration of the Zone are described. Lastly, the article shows how stalkerism contributes to the transformation of tourism and the development of the Zone’s heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the ethnic and linguistic world vision of the peoples of Russia with the aim of revealing the most representative mythologemes connected with swamps and defining their meaning and place in the cultural landscape. Swamps are dangerous areas for humans and, at the same time, they are also a source of food and biological diversity. In the boreal and circumpolar areas, swamps are seen as a separate world that has been perceived as a chaos that exists beyond the control of human beings. The range of meanings of the swamp manifests itself in the archaic pagan world picture as a primordial space. Swamps can be seen as chthonic or liminal spaces on the threshold of the ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ worlds, providing connection between them. In the Christian – and partly in the Muslim – world pictures, the swamp is infernal space where the deities of the ancient world live disguised as devils. The city dwellers who travel to the countryside to pick berries and mushrooms or to go hunting reveal an archaic tendency to depersonalise swamp spirits and other natural forces by avoiding names and precise definitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Oikos: Lithuanian Migration & Diaspora Studies is the property of Lithuanian Emigration Institute and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Arrivals have an unexplored significance as a phenomenon in sociology. This article studies depictions of arrivals to art education courses at Swedish folk high schools in fiction. These arrivals are liminal transitions between two states, warranting personal change, either being the solution to a previous problem or creating a problem (to be solved). Many spaces in society have lost their status as total institutions physically and symbolically detached from the rest of society. The rarity of and desire for totalizing milieus create possibilities for self-exploration and self-development in characters, enabling authenticity and revealing truths of social life. The depiction of the folk high school as a total institution of isolation and a liminal space for change is effective in (re-)producing cultural images of the folk high school and as a literary device to contain characters and develop conflicts that arise from the milieu. At the same time, these arrival stories demonstrate the importance of liminality in arrival and suggest that arrival be studied as a general phenomenon to uncover hidden facets of institutionalized social life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Intersecoes: Revista de Estudios Interdisciplinares is the property of Editora da Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (EdUERJ) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Our paper advances the embryonic interest of combining the theoretical frameworks of sustainable career and career ecosystem into a sustainable career ecosystem theory by introducing Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a new actor, spotlighting the need for liminality of the relationship between an individual and career practitioner, and presenting a new conceptual model. We begin by providing a brief overview of sustainable career and career ecosystem theories, culminating in a recently proposed definition of a sustainable career ecosystem. Second, using this as our point of departure, we consider the theoretical perspectives for understanding a sustainable career ecosystem through (a) introducing AI as a new actor with the potential to disrupt and transform the (future) labor market and (b) making a case for the liminality of the individual and career practitioner relationship. Third, we consider various dimensions for analyzing a sustainable career ecosystem to offer a new conceptual model. We conclude with a future research agenda. Conceptual Paper. • Integration of sustainable career theory and career ecosystem theory into sustainable career ecosystem theory • Development of a model portraying the conceptualization of a sustainable career ecosystem • Positioning artificial intelligence as a new, disruptive, and transformational actor within a sustainable career ecosystem • Consideration of the liminality dimension of the interaction between individuals and career practitioners • Offering a future research agenda to advance sustainable career ecosystems [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics is the property of Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, AUC and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Notions of authenticity underpinning conservation practice have been challenged by artistic and museum practices that contest the mere possibility of singular material existence of objects. These practices work within the liminal, in-between, space some objects currently occupy. But how can conservation conciliate the preservation of an object's material manifestation, with the ethical need to recognise its other material possibilities? The ethical implications of conserving objects whose existence is contested are discussed. Drawing on feminist theory, it is argued that the path towards a fairer, inclusive, and sustainable conservation practice is dependent on the recognition of difference. The ethical ramifications that emerge from practices of conservation that reflect on performative in-betweenness, here called liminality, are explored. By demonstrating that the act of observation is always contingent, the ways we understand and conserve objects materially change them. How those changes can exclude their material possibilities and their becomings, are discussed. A possible ethical approach to conservation is proposed, that goes beyond modernist views of the object being conserved, recognising the exclusions inherent to any process of conservation, celebrating the diversity of material existences of objects we ought to protect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I unpack some of the challenges I faced doing ethnographic work on media production and consumption in the Balkans--particularly in the period of the 1990s-2000s in former Yugoslavia. I reflect on how my personal and intellectual background intersected with my fieldwork in a context that demanded constant (re)negotiation of my own identity, in relation not only to my participants and research colleagues in the region, but also to prevailing academic institutional practices. The article is not an autoethnographic account per se, but more a reflection on the research process in fieldwork sites experiencing great economic, political and social turmoil. As a young female researcher working in the area of cultural and media studies, I faced the problem of not being taken seriously by some research participants and colleagues early on, and had to identify and negotiate my way into the various cultural practices that would enable me to conduct effective multi-site research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the metaphor of beach crossings made famous by ethno-historian Greg DENING (2004), in this article I reflect on my first experience of ethnographic fieldwork. In the article I document how, as a doctoral student investigating 19th century missionary activity, I transitioned from archival to field-based research on the southern Vanuatu island of Tanna in 1975, completed my PhD two years later, and have continued to develop my relations with the Tannese to the present. I argue that this reflects, not only the notable capacity of the Tannese to embrace strangers, but also the extraordinary bond I forged with one "informant", David KAUKARE. I describe how more than any other person it was David, a primary school teacher at an isolated east coast village, who mediated my crossing into a society profoundly different from my own. In the article I explore how together we negotiated the crossings between our interconnecting and shifting worlds--sometimes mindfully, but more often than not serendipitously. In focusing on those initial encounters, I reflect on how prepared--and unprepared--we both were for the experience, and the impact it had on our sense of self and connection with the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore the intersecting landscapes of five public school music teachers who also served as church choir directors. A specific focus was placed on how bivocational participants performed dual roles in two different contexts, and how they called upon their own preparation in music and pedagogy to guide their work. Research questions were (a) How do bivocational music teachers make sense of their religious and professional crossroads? (b) How do bivocational music teachers negotiate the musical and pedagogical underpinnings of church and school? and (c) How do bivocational music teachers' perspectives shape their work with students and congregations? Turner's (1977) concept of liminality served as the theoretical framework for this study. Data sources consisted of semi-structured interviews, digital artifacts, and performance recordings. Overall, participants identified instructional, musical, intrapersonal, and religious crossovers as the most pertinent aspects of their dual roles in church and school, although personal spirituality was more nuanced. Participants appeared to live and work between various endpoints, along a liminal continuum, gliding between roles and identities associated with ritualistic practices in Christian churches and public schools. Implications include meeting diverse learners' needs, identifying mentors in church music pedagogy, cultivating healthy church- and school-based networking, and assembling pedagogically-sound music resources for churches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the liminal space, "the betwixt and between" (V. Turner, 1969), that preservice teachers inhabit after they complete their last practicum and return to campus for final coursework. We look at preservice teachers' expectations, assumptions, and understandings of questions and content in a senior-level curriculum course as uncovered through their assignment, the commonplace book. In this assignment they examined their understanding and meaning-making, or "truth-telling" (Huebner, 1999), in a personal text, which can allow for continued practice of reflection and reflexivity as they enter into their careers in addition to informing the researchers about how students experience growth in their understanding of issues in curriculum as experienced in the liminal space, grounded in historical, social, cultural, and experiential contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning mugham in post-Soviet Azerbaijan often leads to intimate conversations about eşq, or the irresistible desire for a beloved--the central meaning of sung ghazal poetry and a form of intensity experienced during performances of mugham. In this article, I present an approach I call "affective hermeneutics" that shows how the interpretation of love turns into an affective force that moves beyond the boundaries of the mugham musical model found in standard pedagogy. Moreover, it is my contention that affect in mugham performances becomes a tool to forge post-Soviet subjectivities, characterized by paradox and liminality and best expressed in sounds at the edges of the mugham model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that Yuri Herrera's Signs Preceding the End of the World subverts US-centric discourses on border crossing by exposing them as artificial myths. Suspending said myths by superimposing an alternative mythical dimension rooted in Aztec cosmology and narratives about the descent into the underworld, the novel instead fosters a form of 'alternative knowledge' in which the liminal state of border-crossing bodies becomes detached from the negative stigma of hegemonic UScentric discourse. The ensuing study's main analysis aims to detail how the novel's narrative structure of descent reimagines the experiences of unauthorized border crossing as a mythical and transformative journey of self-discovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Musicology of Lithuania / Lietuvos muzikologija is the property of Lithuanian Academy of Music & Theatre and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Migraciones is the property of Universidad Pontificia Comillas, Instituto Universitario de Estudios sobre Migraciones and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

• Perceptions of legitimate agency often framed for the purposes of collective action. • Transition entrepreneurs defy norms against which practices are judged legitimate. • Ideological pluralism instantiates pragmatic behaviours toward collective action. • Competing institutional logics can result in conflicting claims to legitimacy. • Legitimacy actually arises at the institutional liminality of opposing agendas. We report the results of a qualitative longitudinal case study that lends credence to the need to reflect further on the micro politics and legitimation processes of practicing "food justice". The study highlights the ideological pluralism, pragmatism and compromise inherent to the actually occurring experiences of actors involved in organisations ostensibly created to serve a food justice agenda. This has implications for the sort of academic filters prefigured into analytical frameworks for the study of transition processes. Such filters may pre-empt criteria against which practices are judged legitimate or indeed 'effective'. We draw on two distinct bodies of literature exhibiting useful complementarities and develop an argument around the idea of 'liminal transition spaces' where the institutional arrangements of an organisation may be deemed futile or unattainable, but its substitution remains uncertain. Firstly, 'institutional logics' and secondly, pragmatist sociology is used to advance the idea of institutional liminality, and to open a debate on the role and long-term sustainability of transition entrepreneurship among pluralist organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Liminality is an interesting but neglected theory. It helps us in understanding the mental process during a lethal condition like life threatening disease. The present study is an attempt to revisit and explore the wider implications of liminality. The main contributors in this field were Arnold Van Gennep and Victor Turner. Voluminous research has been produced on the basis of theory of liminality. Liminality is applied in the management studies, in Mathematics, in research process, in teaching and even in glass making. In psychology, social sciences, folk studies, in academia, in understanding the condition of the Diaspora, the refugees, the migrants, the immigrants, in terms of buildings, landscapes, modern life, pregnancy, adulthood, even in bungee jumping and adventure sports, etc., liminality has added a new lease of understanding. Liminality has played a pivotal role in understanding the phases of development of a society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anne Michaels's first novel, Fugitive Pieces, garnered numerous awards and produced much scholarly discussion. The Winter Vault followed thirteen years later, but has received little critical attention. This novel traverses the spaces of the construction of the Aswan High Dam, the St. Lawrence Seaway, and the reconstruction of the Old Town of Warsaw. Time bubbles up through these layered landscapes, evidencing markers and minutiae of masses of human lives, as modern-day engineering feats are in the process of obliterating them. The plot of The Winter Vault spirals through palimpsests of not only place, but also time as it bubbles up in the present--carried along great rivers in Canada, Egypt, and Poland: the St. Lawrence, the Nile, the Vistula. In The Winter Vault Michaels's evocative prose writing style continues to create an oneiric tone through which well-defined characters are forced by events across a threshold into hidden recesses of their own being. For the central characters in The Winter Vault, the painful rawness of the confusing and discombobulated liminal space in which they find themselves the wake of loss resonates through place, evincing palimpsests of lives and experiences of others across time. It is, perhaps, the interwovenness of human life and the ability to connect with the suffering of others that is the catalyst for Avery and Jean to connect to the suffering within themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can literature re-imagine universality in a way that would not be an expression of an underlying urge toward homogeneity and totality? Beginning with the remarks from Olga Tokarczuk's Nobel Lecture "The Tender Narrator" where she calls for literature to "universalize our experience" that involves--somewhat counterintuitively--a tender attunement to the fragment, this article discusses a new, paradoxical, feminine formulation of universality in Tokarczuk's bestseller Flights. By analyzing mobilizations of flight in the novel, the article suggests its universal is woven out of "the shadows of consciousness," untranslatable idioms of language, pagan Slavic mythologies, old Slavic sect of Bieguni that is virtually unknown in Eastern Europe, and forgotten historical figures and incidents that the narrator "tenderly" narrates. It proposes that universality in Flights emerges as an ethical and political question of reading, translating, and writing across not only national, social, historical languages and contexts, but also across itinerant and fractured subjectivities, languages, myths, and temporalities embedded within the fabrics of Tokarczuk's novel. This universal is also structured of ambivalent capitalist presents and socialist pasts--though not explicitly addressed, post-socialist transition surfaces here as the unresolvable political, temporal, and subjective liminality. Finally, the article proposes that Tokarczuk's unique formulation of universality in terms of attention to the fragmentary, forgotten, and fleeting informs recent decolonial, emancipatory attempts in Eastern European feminist scholarship and offers a way out of a certain deadlock created by the frequent dismissal of universality due to its association with the patriarchal status quo and the repression of difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]