This paper examines how forcibly displaced people cope with prolonged liminality through identity work. Our paper is based on a longitudinal multiple case study of women refugees who fled Syria and experienced liminality in Amman-Jordan, The Zaatari Refugee Camp in Jordan and the United Kingdom. We contribute to the liminality literature by demonstrating how forcibly displaced people respond to extreme structural constraints and maintain cognitive control over their sense of selves during liminality with an end date that is unknown. We develop the concept of liminality by illustrating how the actors were pushed into a state of ‘indeterminate liminality’ and coped by co-constructing it through three forms of identity work – recomposing conflicting memories, reclaiming existence, and repositioning tradition. This enabled them to stretch the boundaries of indeterminate liminality and symbolically restore their familiar past and narratively construct a meaningful future.

本文探讨被迫流离失所者如何通过身份工作应对长期的限制。我们的论文基于对逃离叙利亚并在安曼-约旦、约旦和英国的 Zaatari 难民营经历阈限的女性难民的纵向多案例研究。我们通过展示被迫流离失所者如何应对极端结构性限制并在结束日期未知的阈限期间保持对自我意识的认知控制，为阈限文献做出贡献。我们通过说明演员如何被推入“不确定的阈值”状态并通过三种形式的身份工作共同构建它来应对阈值的概念——重新组合冲突的记忆、回收存在和重新定位传统。