Chapter SOMEWHERE 

Rethinking Liminality in Border Regimes

Chapter Somewhere: Rethinking Liminality in Border Regimes serves as the cornerstone of my theoretical exploration in the PhD manuscript. Here, I delve into the central inquiry that has driven my dissertation: how the concept of Liminality (Van Gennep and Turner), along with the state of inbetweenness—both geographically and affectively between borders—might have played a role in the transformation of The Dzjangal, Tiburtina and Los Arenales labeled as ‘non-places’ towards places of sociability and conviviality. In this Chapter I am interested in documenting my theoretical journey from the conceptions of non-places, Liminality and limbo towards ‘Somewhere Inbetween’(see Epilogue), and how this journey aided me in understanding the transformational processes of placemaking in The Dzjangal, Tiburtina and Los Arenales. In the first section of the Chapter, I discuss how the concepts of non-place and places of exception are commonly used in defining "refugee camps" within the urban fabric. Through my fieldwork in the three settlements upon which this dissertation is based, I argue against labeling them as ‘non-places’ and ‘places of exception’, as they possess aspects of belonging, a sense of home and conviviality. In the second section, I engage with Liminality as a theoretical framework for understanding the state of the inbetween in migratory experiences by drawing on the current literature that involves Liminality as a state of becoming and possibility in migratory settings.

Additionally, in the annex of this Chapter. I incorporate experiences within the COVID-19 pandemic in cross-border contexts, which I deem essential in describing ‘global liminality’. Here, I entangle my own experience of crossing borders during closures and the realities faced by people-in-transit at the French-English border of Calais. I discuss how the pandemic has made the experience of not crossing borders commonplace around the world, drawing upon the concept of 'strangers' by the sociologist Georg Simmel (1908), which offered glimpses reflecting on the inbetweenness experiences commonly encountered by people-in-transit navigating borders regimes compared with 'normal citizens' who found themselves confronting feelings of ‘out of time’ produced by the pandemic. This second section outlines why I initially consider Liminality to be a suitable concept for describing and analyzing migration experiences, transit states and uncertainties in the context of contemporary border regimes.

My subsequent findings criticize Liminality due to its degree of abstraction and ambiguity, which can pose a challenge when engaging with migration processes. Therefore, in the final section, I explore different perspectives of the term ‘Limbo’, which is still associated with the concept of Liminality due to the common concept of threshold. The term ‘Limbo’ was most commonly used by these communities, as they themselves described their sense of living in these places and enduring a constant confrontation with the border regime as a ‘limbo state’. This section lays the stage for further discussion in the next Chapter Becomings and the Epilogue about the state of inbetweenness and the processes of becoming that people-in-transit experience as they navigate border regimes, and how these different states can, in turn, still create social places in today's postcolonial and postmigrant present.