Crisis and Sensemaking: The Relevance of Liminal Experience and Metastability for a Sociocultural Psychology of Crisis

This paper provides an overview of liminality theory and its relevance to the study of sensemaking in and about crises. It sketches a model of liminal metastability as a way of thinking about disrupted equilibrium within psychosocial systems. Liminal metastability presupposes a reality composed of a complex array of forms of process, and hence calls for a relational process ontology. In developing the concept of liminal metastability, the paper discusses and critiques Weick's account of sensemaking in crisis. It also discusses the accounts of disturbed equilibrium at play in cognitive dissonance theory and Freud's theory of disruptions to the pleasure and reality principles.