Liminal Space

QUOTE

André Gide once said…

“One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.”

(French author)

CONCEPT

Liminal Space

A liminal space is a threshold—an in-between state where the old has fallen away, but the new has not yet taken form. The word comes from the Latin *limen*, meaning “doorway.”

Liminal spaces are often uncomfortable. They are marked by ambiguity, uncertainty, and suspended identity. Yet they are also fertile. In liminality, rules loosen, assumptions dissolve, and transformation becomes possible.

Whether experienced personally (grief, migration, career change) or collectively (social upheaval, institutional transition), liminal space is where meaning is renegotiated.

STORY

Uncertainty … the Trial of Growth?

In the early 20th century, more than 12 million immigrants passed through Ellis Island, a small federal processing station in New York Harbor. For most of them, it was neither home nor destination—but a literal liminal space that determined the rest of their lives.

After weeks at sea, immigrants disembarked carrying everything they owned. They climbed a long staircase into the Great Hall, unaware that doctors below were watching closely. Medical officers scanned for signs of illness or disability—trachoma, tuberculosis, lameness. A piece of chalk marked on a coat could mean detention or deportation.

For hours, sometimes days, immigrants waited in uncertainty. They were no longer citizens of their old countries in any practical sense, yet not legally admitted to the United States. Their names, languages, and professions were examined. A wrong answer, a misunderstood question, or a missing document could end the journey.

This space was not neutral. It stripped people of familiar roles and status. Farmers, teachers, craftsmen—all became simply “applicants.” Parents could be separated from children. Futures hinged on brief interviews conducted in unfamiliar languages.

Yet Ellis Island was also a place of becoming.

Roughly 98 percent of those processed were admitted. When they stepped onto the ferry to Manhattan, they crossed a psychological threshold as much as a physical one. They left behind one identity and entered another—often renamed, reclassified, and reimagined. The in-between had done its work.

Historians note that many immigrants later described Ellis Island as the most frightening and hopeful place they had ever been. It was terrifying because everything was undecided. It was hopeful because possibility was still intact.

Ellis Island exemplifies liminal space at scale: a holding zone where certainty was suspended and transformation was unavoidable. It reminds us that the most consequential changes rarely happen at the beginning or the end of a journey—but in the waiting room between.