ESRC - The Liminal Timeline: A Primer for Leadership Theory and Application

• In Event: 9th Annual Emerging Scholars Research Consortium

Short Description

Liminality: An uncomfortable, avoided transitional phase; a disturbance or irritation in the order of things; the forbidden territory of knowledge one goes through, passing from one defined position to another. An overview of four models reveal an interdisciplinary construct prompting further leadership studies inquiry and application.

Detailed Abstract

Whether in health, relationships, education, politics, or a host of human interests, life seems to be in a constant state of flux. Change may be desired, empirically confirmed, and systematic; voluntarily and intelligently pursued to bring about growth, comfort, success, or salvation. Inversely, during unplanned, difficult, or chaotic times a transition may feel anarchic: bewildered, shunned, ignored, vehemently opposed, or forced. Whether positive and negative, change is inevitable.

Multiple disciplines explore transition theory, yet the work overall is disjointed; little unity––especially among terminology––exists across genres. Even among individual authors there is variance in theoretical wording describing liminal events: metaxy, (Plato [as described by Voegelin], 1966), a liminal phase (Van Gennep, 1909), pattern disturbance (Freud, 1913), crisis of life (Radin, 1937), initiation (Campbell, 1949), paradigm shift (Kuhn, 1962), grief (Kübler-Ross, 1969), betwixt and between (Turner, 1969), a gap (McKee, 1997), metanoia (Senge, 2006), and myriad other liminal descriptors abound throughout human history. Forms of liminality are also illustrated in early historical lore and arts, including cave murals and the manipulation of life through early metallurgy and alchemic processes (Horvath, 2013).

It has been suggested that the structural order of van Gennep’s rites of passage framework is the key to the structure of human experience (Szakolczai, 2009, 2015; Thomassen, 2014; Van Gennep, 1960), a central fact of life (Thomassen, 2009), and law of life and the universe (Van Gennep, 1960). In agreement, it is herein contended that liminal experiences are immutable and innumerable, yet there is a common flow––a common sequential and “processual” (Thomassen, 2009, p. 14) structure in transitions. This discussion will expose the disjointed work and their common structure by introducing four unrelated models of liminal progression: the anthropological concept of rites of passage, the structure of scientific revolutions, mythological story arch, and the grief cycle as a model of emotional bereavement adjustment. A review of background and authors in each discipline is necessary to gain understanding of the logic behind formulation of each timeline. The hope of this discussion is three-fold: 1. The advancement of a foundational, universal model as liminality appeals and applies to the full spectrum of human experiences. 2. To discuss, analyze, and process the clear and dire need for applicable, ethical leadership in times of transition. 3. In hope of stirring scholarly dialog, debate, and resolution concerning the common flow of transitional models.

Participant

• J.W. Bergmann, Johnson University