Field notes from the In-Between #7: BETWIXT AND BETWEEN

By Jitske Kramer. Corporate anthropologist | Award-winning & bestselling author

We are in a period of transition. In many organisations. In our societies. Across the globe. Our current economic narrative is causing too much ecological and humanitarian damage. Geopolitical powers are shifting. Certainties are crumbling.

We are leaving behind what no longer works — but have not yet arrived at what will take its place. We are in the in-between.

Anthropologists call this state liminality: a threshold space, full of ambiguity, tension, and possibility. A time when the old identity has been stripped away, but the new one is not yet formed. Liminality is uncomfortable — and necessary. It’s the space where transformation happens.

‘Liminality is not a detour. It is the path of change’ is what I write in my book Tricky Times.

Liminality is a confusing betwixt-and-between time, it is the messy middle of change. It is a time of chaos, uncertainty and untold possibility. An in-between time filled with opportunities, dangers and lures.

Three stages of transformation. Anthropology shows that processes of transformation are experienced in much the same way by people all over the world, unfolding according to three successive stages. The same basic stages play out during changes at the personal, organisational and societal level. Each has particular rituals that mark and ease the transition from one stage to the next. Though always unique, all cultural patterns are underpinned by deeply human patterns, because human is what we are.

The separation stage is where we leave the old behind. The first step is acknowledging that things cannot go on as they are, followed by grief and a power vacuum. Because: what will the new situation look like, how will contracts (agreements) and earnings (rewards) be allocated, and who gets to have the final say? This ushers in the next stage, a stage of uncertainty known as liminality. This is a transitional period of trying to work out what will be ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ in the new situation. Of searching for new ways, new stories and cultural solutions. It is a creative stage that, if all goes well, leads to an integration stage. Integration is about applying what we learned in the transitional stage to the new reality. We have to make choices to change how we do things for good, put new ideas into practice and flesh them out in new procedures, laws and methods.

Liminality: the messy middle of change. The word ‘liminal’ comes from the Latin limes, meaning ‘threshold’ or ‘boundary’, which also gives us the English word ‘limit’. Liminality is a fluid in-between state in which the usual constraints on behaviour and thinking are relaxed to make room for imagination, renewal and destruction. It offers a space in which to discover new desires and possibilities. It is a betwixt-and-between space; between A and B, between this and that, between the no longer and the not yet. The space between stories. It is a time out of time in which what was is gone and what will be is still unknown. And a transitional time when people (or nations, or organisations) have no defined social role or position. Authority of any kind is questioned, power undermined, long-held rights overturned, established norms struck down and sacred truths and symbols mocked. It is an incredibly vulnerable time and very challenging for all those experiencing it.

Liminality makes our emotions go all over the place. On the one hand, it feels infinitely liberating when old boundaries and constructs fall away, unleashing a rush of energy, creativity and innovation. On the other, it feels peculiarly disorienting to have certainties pulled out from under you. Nothing seems to really matter anymore, yet everything feels hugely consequential. Our collective sense of meaning dissolves and we feel a looming threat of imploding or exploding forces. Thoughts and opinions circle in a kind of vacuum with no anchors to guide us about aesthetics (what is beautiful and what is ugly), norms (what is right and what is wrong) or reality (what is true and what is false). These feelings may not be pleasant, but they are very human and normal. Liminality offers opportunities to break with old cultural habits and entrenched privileges. But seizing them takes courage and leadership.

Change is not a problem to be solved, but an integral part of life. The path we walk is really a succession of all kinds of transformations and rites of passage, both big and small. They form the core and the throughline of our lives. These transitions also always unfold according to a fixed pattern. It may seem chaotic to the linear mind, but in fact it’s not. Within the apparent chaos, there are distinct patterns in how people experience and structure transitions.

We all live with liminality. Without it, everything would stagnate. Human life is made up of a succession of routines and habits, but also of all kinds of chance and unexpected events that put us in situations that are out of the ordinary, or even extraordinary. These are the moments that make you who you are, that shape your character and bring renewal.

Leadership during liminality. In liminal situations, all the usual frameworks, habits and skills of workaday life no longer suffice. In extraordinary situations, you need extraordinary methods. The question during liminality is always: who will guide us through this chaos? Life is full of transitions. Day turns into night. We get sick and fortunately often get better. But sometimes not. We fall in love and back out of it. There are so many things we have no control over and the best we can do is try to get through them in a meaningful way. We go through all kinds of transitions, not only individually, but as groups and whole societies. In our fear of change, we do our best to manage, predict, prepare and plan for every eventuality. But the secret to changing is to get comfortable with the process of change itself. Sticking to what you planned lets you feel decisive and in control, but it’s also exhausting. The moment you give in to the situation, you begin feeling all the emotions buried beneath the hard work.

Anthropology teaches us that, without good liminal leadership, ‘tricksters’ and opportunists are likely to step into the breach: people who wield tricky logic and tactics and promise things we want to hear but that they can’t possibly deliver. Populists, for example. Clever consultants. Tech gurus peddling gadgets we all too eagerly snap up. With a bit of bad luck, these tricksters can mobilise online troll armies to wreak havoc and fuel chaos to serve their own ends. The trickster is a hugely important archetype that we can’t do without. But too many tricksters is a recipe for insanity, especially if bad actors use tricky tactics for their own gain.

I’ll return to the power and dangers of tricksters in a future post. Safe travels.