Between Binaries: Liminality and the Dynamics of Alterity

In ancient and modern societies, we can trace a complex dynamic created by wide-ranging interaction within the spectrum of human diversity. It triggers closures in which social boundaries are drawn between ‘us’ and ‘them’. These divisions enable an unequal distribution of power and resources. Yet in the long run, they rarely fulfill the expectations of all those who feel entitled to a share in the privileges conferred by the mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion put into place. The boundaries therefore come under pressure, are contested and/or subverted. Depending on the societal distribution of wealth and power they can get more rigid or more flexible. Based on recent research, we aim for a better understanding of the strategies of distinction formulated and employed by individuals and groups. How and when do social categorisations become more or less salient, and how does their varying salience impact their use, meaning and history? We focus on spaces between more or less well-delineated entities in which individuals and groups may find themselves, driven by the own ambitions and/or ill fates. The people in-between have to mobilize all their resources to face the challenge. They may become cultural brokers, ambitious converts, a badly-treated workforce or destitute outsiders. It is no surprise that people who in the past produced the most interesting written accounts on their own societies would understand themselves as in-betweeners. But does this self-understanding correspond to assessments by historians? For which social spaces and individual fates does ‘in-between binaries’ provide a productive category? This is the main question we would like to pursue. We aim at a differentiated understanding of the fates and options of those who were caught in the middle, in between constructed alterities. Observing how people occupied places in-between binaries, and how boundaries were maintained by enforcing binary oppositions can provide us with a window into the histories of categorial infrastructures in different cultures, societies and periods.

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