Navigating the Liminal Space of a PhD Journey

Is doing a PhD feel like being in an eternal liminal space? 

How does one navigate this space for oneself and the collective?

Taking a pause after my PhD to see what makes my heart continue to sing and dance has been a wise decision. I believe it is important to take time to integrate and assimilate the experience as a whole and share narratives. 

Liminal Spaces

This is a painting representing liminal spaces that I drew almost 5 years back. Today I thought I will write a bit about a reflection on why a PhD journey feels like being in the liminal space for an extended period of time. While liminal spaces are threshold spaces that hold space for both the current reality and the emerging future at the same time, being in this space for extended periods of time takes a lot of energy and having to navigate uncertainty and complexity.

Reasons why PhD feels like being in the liminal space for ever:

1. Threshold experience: You are working full time, but you are neither an undergraduate student nor a a fully qualified researcher as the system sees it. So what is your identity like and how does the university system validate this?

2. Identity transformation: You are changing as a person, transforming how you think, research and see yourself professionally. There is an identity shift and you are experimenting being in new ways. is there space for this conversation with other PhD students?

3. Uncertainty and discomfort: While being in discomfort holds great potential for something new to emerge, they lack familiar structures and certainties are absent. PhD involves questions like: Will this research work? Am I good enough? When will I finish?. How do you create spaces of dialogue around uncertainty in being a PhD student? 

4. Creativity potential: Liminal spaces and being in a PhD process are both incredibly generative spaces. The PhD's ambiguity and open-endedness can spark breakthrough insights, just as liminal spaces often become sites of innovation and new possibilities. How do you harness this creative potential while dimming the voices of uncertainty as a collective?

5. Isolation and community: PhD students often feel caught between worlds - too advanced for some conversations, too novice for others. Liminal spaces similarly involve a sense of being apart from established communities while potentially forming new ones. How is this experienced in your life as a PhD student? 

These are some conversations I deeply missed as a doctoral student since the system does not go beyond the practicalities of what one needs to know and study. Let me know if you would like to invite me to organise a dialogue space around any of these themes.