This thesis argues that JM Coetzee’s novels, in particular Foe, Disgrace, Elizabeth Costello, Slow Man and Diary of a Bad Year all illustrate the complexity of, and the ethical implications and far-reaching consequences resulting from an attempt to effect change in contemporary postcolonial societies. Coetzee represents contemporary postcolonial society, by using liminal characters and narrators who are required by personal or societal conflict and/or crises to make ethical choices with significant results. Various narrative conventions and strategies, all of which influence the ethical implications drawn up for the characters/narrators, are used by Coetzee. Reactions of these liminal characters to their crises of choice vary. The implications of relations between liminal characters, protagonists and narrators with regard to the Other are examined and evaluated. The study identifies the strategies used by Coetzee to subtly lure the reader into accepting co-responsibility for ethical choices required of the characters and narrators. The various reactions that a reader could have on the ethical imperative of formulating a personal stance on liminality, both in terms of the texts and in contemporary postcolonial society, are also evaluated. In the final instance the study indicates that a certain development in Coetzee’s own ethical views can possibly be linked to certain narrative patterns in the selected novels. / PhD (English), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

This thesis explores the embodied topography of Mount Athos, emphasizing the conditions of liminality – the nature of different kinds of boundaries and intermediate zones within it. Mount Athos is a valuable case study of sacred topography, as it is one of the largest monastic communities and an important pilgrimage destination. Its phenomenological examination in this study highlights the importance of embodiment in the experience of religious places advocating also for a deeper understanding of the boundaries in it. The thesis seeks to convey a more primary insight into the phenomena found there, examining also how ritual and pre-reflective embodied movements explore the topography in a meaningful way. Combining elements of different disciplines (philosophy, theology, anthropology, and architectural history and theory) with primary sources from archives and fieldwork, the thesis constitutes an original contribution to both Athonian studies and sacred topography scholarship. By focusing on the spatial, temporal and aural boundaries and intermediate zones as perceptual phenomena of an embodied topography, it suggests an alternative to the usual art-historical, objectifying examination of the case study. Liminality refers to the intermediate zones between two or more components of a sacred place. It allows the reciprocal communication between them, carrying the character of both departure and return. In using liminality as a focus of investigation, the thesis provides a new understanding of the way religious places are interconnected through cyclical rituals, the strangers’ travel and silent meditation. Following the archetype of the journey, these movements are also studied according to their particular power to “map” places in a more primary way than the modern cartographic method. Starting from the periphery of Athos, the study presents a variety of in-between zones, the passage through which contributes to the sensual realization of a multi-layered meaningful topography. Annual pilgrimages to the peak of the mountain, silent meditation in isolated caves, wandering asceticism and walking along the footpaths provide different ways to narrate the natural landscape of the peninsula. Moreover, ritual choreographies being inscribed in the courtyard and church of a coenobitic monastery, meals and death services ritually perform the place. Through their investigation, this study illuminates important aspects of the topography, such as its multi-sensual aural environment in which silence plays a key role. The analysis concludes that the different liminal zones of Mount Athos are always undergoing a condition of penetration, alteration, and even violation, allowing the integrity of the topography to be enacted.

This study of the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop and Sylvia Plath goes beyond the usual practice of labelling these writers either as reticent or Confessional. Instead, it places greater emphasis on their visual poetics which privileges the process of creativity – the different modes of seeing – over ethical and political considerations. I begin by discussing what each knew of the other and proceed to examine their common interest in perception and interpretation. Bishop and Plath seek to understand the depiction of ‘reality’ and the various forms that this takes: the concrete fact, the object or the authentic experience modulated by historical data, whether symbols, mythical forms or religious conventions. In their poetry the self objectifies the world, discovering and simultaneously defining observed phenomena. Alternatively, personal identity is determined as part of a symbolic order because the present is deemed inadequate in itself and, therefore, frames of reference need to be expanded, analogies drawn, historical parallels established, myths invoked. This historicised art is complex, stylistic and culturally established. Bishop’s poetry, for instance, distinguishes between customary ways of seeing; the symbolism of medieval painting and the untrained eye of individualism (Primitive art). Her poetic ‘transparency’, language which corresponds faithfully to actual experience, calls attention, by its very directness and apparent simplicity, to the various parts of a synthesising imagination that could, potentially, infringe upon pure vision. The analysis of Bishop’s language and its development is based upon her published and unpublished material. Bishop and Plath underscore differences between description and meditation, empirical enquiry and symbolic transformation, the tangible and the abstract. They further consider religious beliefs ephemeral and place their faith in the primacy of the material world. Bishop is especially distrusting of symbolism in Christian imagery. Plath admired Bishop‘s poetry for being ‘real’, that is intimate, but not self-obsessed, concerned with aestheticism and ‘pleasure-giving’. This was the type of poetry she aspired to write. The reading of Plath uses autobiography sparingly, while arguing that her work – including poems in Ariel – demonstrates the creative strategies of, what she termed, a ‘pseudo-reality’. This precludes the automatic designation of her poetry as fully Confessional. Visual poetics is broadly defined to include a discussion on surrealism. Bishop was fascinated by the movement‘s expression of the numinous and transcendent but recoiled from its illogical thinking. Plath was equally drawn and repelled by male surrealists’ portrayal of the woman subject. In her poetry the misogyny of this art is countered by the appropriation of more positive imagery found in female surrealists such as Leonor Fini.

This work analyzes the transitional activities and experiences that are inherent to accessing and navigating the Internet. Under established anthropological fieldwork of liminality theory by Victor Turner, as well as John Dewey's claims in experiential aesthetic theory, aesthetic experiences of the Internet are characterized. This paper concludes that such internet experiences abide by liminal thresholds and therefore comprise aesthetic distinction and significance. While Dewian aesthetics can only characterize this aesthetic distinction to a certain degree, Blanka Domagalska provides an alternative liminal explanation towards classifying such experience and its effect on individuation. Conclusive classifications of internet experiences in turn lend to greater metaphysical considerations regarding humanity's manifestation of being in a hyper-mediated, internet accessible world.

Sacerludus, a performative (textual) art work in its own right, provides a self-reflexive ground against which to analogically consider art praxis as a tactical ritual process. Drawing on the distinction between Ritual (generatively, subjunctive ‘as-if’ in character), and Ceremony (descriptively, indicative ‘as-is’ in character), Victor Turner’s work on ritual liminality is applied as core theoretical concept: this generates the seeds and models of future society. Alongside the socio-political bias that liminality carries in bricolaged, makeshift and sensory orchestration, de Certeau’s concept of tactics is enlisted to reinforce potentials of counter-cultural resistance and subversivity. ‘What is Ritual?’ is considered before dealing with art praxis in its situated, exhibitional contexts, as they draw on ritual tactics. Art praxis and production is proposed as a subjunctively performative, ritual occasion, in opposition to the traditional conception as indicative, autonomous object. The contemporary form of installation is explored to reveal its incarnate implications for performative participation. The ritual approaches tactics and processes adopted in conceiving and executing the works are articulated, before, in a form of post-scripted lettering, the contexted concerns of the submitted works are addressed. Sacerludus concludes that the framework of Ritual can be productively foregrounded in art praxis, as in its subversive-loading, it engages a participatively inclusive, generatively resistant process for contemporary aesthetic production.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work / L. Susan Williams / This qualitative study draws from 54 interviews with "lifers" -- those serving 20 years or more -- from three correctional facilities across Kansas; it addresses the stark void in criminological literature about prison culture in the context of late-modern penality. This dissertation explores identity transformation of inmates serving a life sentence, proposing that incarceration represents a new rite of passage for 2.22 million citizens in the US. This inquiry utilizes the concept of liminality to capture the "betwixt and between" component of significant life transitions such as being handed a life sentence. Extending Jewkes' (2002) work on liminality, the study advances and supports the notion of a suspended liminality, an elongated vulnerability to one's sense of self, which, for those serving a long prison sentence, generally occurs during the first five years. Eventually, some lifers are able to rebuild social networks. The process of identity transition reflects an interstitial drift between suspended liminality and prisonization, contingent upon social support, sense of belonging, and forms of hope. Reconsidering the notion of a permanent "social death," this study provides evidence of a social purgatory, yielding a period of chaos and confusion in which the self is in turmoil, engaged in a battle to find meaning and purpose. The analysis employs group interviews, multiple on-site observations, field notes, and a night in solitary confinement; three inmates assisted in the interview design. This dissertation contributes a "thick description" of contemporary life in US prisons and transitions through long sentences that may present barriers to successful reentry.

Studien belyser hur barn i förskolan uppfattar det när ett nytt barn integreras till gruppen. Fokus ligger på det relationella samspel som sker mellan individer och grupp på en avdelning i förskolan. Det som studeras är hur barnen uppfattar det just i den fas som ett nytt barn inträder till gruppen. Studien har en fenomenografisk ansats och utgår från barnens perspektiv. Sju barn i åldern 4-6 år har intervjuats och deras uppfattningar ligger till grund för resultatet. Det är inte gruppens gemensamma utvecklingsprocess som studeras utan det är barnens ögonblicksbilder av hur de upplever det när ett nytt barn integreras i en förskolegrupp. Resultatet redogör först för barnens individuella uppfattningar av fenomenet, därefter görs en analys med hjälp av positioneringsteori som ger en mer samlad bild av barnens uppfattningar. Slutligen används ekologisk systemteori för att koppla barnens individuella uppfattningar till samspelet på en avdelning som då ses som ett microsystem. Fyra teman framträder som centrala för hur barnen beskriver integrering i en avdelnings microsystem. Det handlar om mötet med det nya: bli ensam eller en del av gruppen, barns ansvar för lek och sociala regler, pedagogers ansvar för yttre struktur och organisation samt gemensamt ansvar för inkludering. I alla tema framträder positionering och centralt är att det ur barnens perspektiv råder ett ojämnt maktförhållande som innebär att barnens perspektiv, både som individ och grupp, kommer i andra hand efter den etablerade verksamhetens perspektiv.

Heart burial is a funerary practice that has been performed since the early medieval period. However, relatively little scholarship has been published on it in English. Heart burial began as a pragmatic way to preserve a body, but it became a meaningful tradition in Western Europe during the medieval and early modern periods. In an anthropological context, the ritual served the needs of elites and the societies they governed. Elites used heart burial not only to preserve their bodies, but to express devotion, stabilize the social order and advocate legitimacy, and even gain heaven. Heart burial assisted in the elite Christian, his or her family, and society pass through the liminal period of death. Over the centuries, heart burial evolved to remain relevant. The practice is extant to the present day, though the motivations behind it are very different from those of the medieval and early modern periods.

This thesis investigates the commitment bonds of individuals through the lens of liminality. While workers are able to commit to multiple targets and this has been linked to important performance outcomes, previous study of commitment in the workplace is almost exclusively concerned with organisational contexts and employer-employee dyads thus neglecting the increasingly fragmented and diverse world of work. Commitment is developed here by examining it in a liminal position, a term often applied to cross-boundary knowledge workers due to its ambiguous and uncertain nature but also the freedom of being 'betwixt and between' organisations, professions, and clients. Indicative of this liminal position are independent consultants, a growing army of self-employed freelance knowledge workers who use their tacit knowledge and high levels of human capital to solve complex problems for multiple business clients. Independent consultancy is a growing area and as self-employed independent contractors they are an increasingly important policy battleground. They are vital to our understanding of a changing world of work where existing theories and frameworks are becoming stretched, distorted and perhaps even irrelevant. Adopting a pragmatist research philosophy and making use of a reflexive metamethodology, 50 semi-structured interviews using critical incidents and participatory visual methods were conducted. Thematic analysis was used and a new method of visual metaphor analysis pioneered. The resulting findings focus on three areas. Firstly important targets of commitment are identified; clients, professional bodies, and collaborators. I argue that these act as substitutes for commitment to an organisation because they perform a similar role. Secondly, these bonds of commitment are underpinned by the inherent freedom of a liminal position. Although this freedom is evident in various ways, a more critical reading suggests that it is more complex and relational rather than total. Finally, this freedom from organisational ties and structures can cause conflicts of commitment based on knowledge, time, and contractual issues. Devoid of an organisational employer and many of the accompanying administrative and support mechanisms these conflicts are resolved at an individual level by turning the conflict into a synergy, preventing, avoiding, or in extreme cases changing the nature of the bond altogether. The primary contributions to knowledge are the development of substitutes for organisational commitment, the detailing of conflicts of commitment and their resolution, and the inherent freedom of a liminal position which underpins these. Furthermore, this thesis offers the first investigation using the Klein et al. (2012) reconceptualisation to investigate commitment outside of an organisational employment setting. This context and aspects of liminality are used to further problematise the extant literature and theory around the volition inherent in commitment and the isolation and measurement of targets. Understanding of liminality is advanced in terms of freedom, which is often assumed but rarely explored, and anti-structure by arguing that liminality is full of structure in the form of commitment bonds which act as important anchors and reference points to help minimise the ambiguity.

This doctoral research explores the ways in which UK law engages with embryonic processes, namely under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 (as amended). The research offers a fuller understanding of these elusive and evolving biological processes, and in particular, how they can, in turn, allow us to understand legal process and legal regulation more deeply. To do so, the thesis employs an anthropological concept - liminality - coined by Arnold van Gennep, which is itself concerned with revealing the dynamics of process. Liminality may be described as being concerned with the spaces in between distinct stages of human experience or with the process of transition between such stages. With this framing of liminality in mind - which is often characterised as a three-stage process of human experience - the research is divided into three parts, broadly reflecting the three parts of van Gennep's liminal schema: into, through, and out of liminality. It is argued herein that in regulating the embryo - that is, a processual liminal entity in itself - the law is regulating for uncertainty. Tracing the legal governance of the early stages of human life, from its inception to today's regulatory frameworks, the research diagnoses a 'legal gap' between the conceptual basis for regulation, and practical 'realities' of the 1990 Act (as amended). In particular, this 'gap' is typified by uncertainty surrounding embryos in vitro, and what this thesis diagnoses as 'legal stasis'. In order to situate this novel liminal analysis within existing paradigms, however, the thesis first frames embryos in vitro as 'gothic', building upon emergent analytical responses to postmodern forms of categorisation. This framing helps to articulate the nature of, and the reasons for, the above-mentioned 'legal gap'. This framing is nonetheless incomplete without a liminal lens, as it draws our attention to the dynamics of the processes occurring within this 'gap'. It is argued that considering the 'problem' in this manner enables us to move beyond conceptualisation, towards realisation. The gothic, and the liminal are thus used to critically assess legal representations of the embryo, and suggests that there are ways in which the law might better embrace the multiplicity of environments through which the embryo in vitro can travel, that is, either towards reproductive or research ends. It is argued that full recognition of these variable, relational liminal states of the embryo is important for the future of artificial reproduction and embryo research, and that this does not currently happen. In order for the law to reflect better the uncertain nature of embryonic processes, and the technologies that create them, the thesis posits a nuanced, contextual reframing of the embryo that captures the multiplicity of embryonic 'pathways' available within the 1990 Act (as amended). The overarching objective of this work is to consider a more coherent and robust intellectual defence of the ways in which we justify different treatments of in vitro embryos. It thus proposes a 'context-based approach' that embraces the variable, relational pathways already facilitated by the 1990 Act (as amended) in order to lead the embryo (and itself) into, through and out of liminality.