Liminality & Ambiguity
Salinas (2013) argues that in order for a trickster to break linguistic and classificatory boundaries, those boundaries must already exist; otherwise, there would be nothing for the trickster to transgress. I interpret this as meaning that human beings have adapted language and created categories in order to make a complex world more understandable and manageable for ourselves. Limitations do not necessarily arise from the categories themselves, but rather when we stop recognizing that reality is more complex than our models. I believe I can observe in politics and society that we attempt to force reality into these simplified models. We forget that the models are merely simplified maps rather than reality itself. I therefore interpret the tricksterās function in this context as demonstrating that reality is more complex than our models by beginning from the categories and properties of those models and then transgressing them. Human beings need categories in order to make the world comprehensible; the trickster needs categories in order to remind us that behind them lies a more complex reality.
Language, labels, and categories can be useful. Having shared linguistic frameworks can make it easier to exist together within a society. It is when we forget that they are merely models rather than reality that they become obstacles rather than aids ā for example, for people who cannot easily be placed within a specific category. Since I myself am transgender, I will use gender as an example. In my own life, I have experienced barriers in the form of being categorized as a woman (before transition) and as a cisgender man (after transition). These labels have influenced my self-understanding, where the former created doubt regarding my own experience, while the latter raised questions about which contexts I do and do not belong within. Language can therefore speak over people ā in my case, it tells a story that perhaps corresponds with my outward expression according to gender categories, but not with who I actually am.
At the same time, I experience a sense of freedom in not needing to fit neatly within these categories. Identifying with words such as ātrans manā and āgender transgressorā has helped me define myself outside of rigid categories, and especially through Loki as inspiration, I have not only accepted this but also embraced it. At the same time, as Salinas points out, this freedom presupposes that the original categories exist in the first place. The words I use also reflect something Salinas discusses ā that the walls between categories do not necessarily need to disappear, but rather become permeable. Both ātransā and ātransgressorā presuppose that there is something on the other side to move beyond, something to transgress, and that such movement is possible.
The conclusion I arrive at is that we can retain categories in order to make a complex reality more comprehensible, while still remembering that they are merely models incapable of encompassing the entirety of reality. And the trickster helps remind us of this.
I arrived at this conclusion because I had already spent considerable time reflecting on the relationship between models and reality before encountering Salinas, and I found that his reasoning could be meaningfully applied to this issue. In relation to my own practice, Loki shattered my models from the very beginning, and he continues to do so. Even though I am consciously aware that language and categories can be misleading, I undoubtedly still have blind spots of my own, and together with Loki and ongoing reflection, I hope to become more aware of them.
Sources
Salinas, C. (2013) āAmbiguous Trickster Liminality: Two Anti-Mythological Ideasā, Review of Communication, 13(2), pp. 143ā159. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/15358593.2013.791716.