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Liminality, Transgression and Space Across the World : Being, Living and Becoming(s) Against, Across and with Borders and Boundaries 1st Edition
Basak Tanulku
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Liminality, Transgression and Space Across the World
This book analyses various forms of liminality and transgression in different geographies and demonstrates how and why various physical and symbolic boundaries create liminality and transgression.
Its focus is on comprehending the ways in which these borders and boundaries generate liminality and transgression rather than viewing them solely as issues. It provides case studies from the past and present, allowing readers to connect subjects, periods, and geographies. It consists of theoretical and empirical chapters that demonstrate how borders and liminality are interconnected. The book also benefits from the power of several visual essays by artists to complete the theoretical and empirical chapters which demonstrate different forms of liminality without need of much words.
The book will be of interest to researchers and students working in the fields of urban and rural studies, urban sociology, cities and communities, urban and regional planning, urban anthropology, political science, migration studies, human geography, cultural geography, urban anthropology, and visual arts.
Basak Tanulku is an independent scholar based in Istanbul, Turkey. She holds a PhD degree in sociology, Lancaster University in the UK. She conducted her PhD study on gated communities. Since then, Tanulku has worked on different subjects, such as socio-spatial fragmentation, urban transformation and vacancy, urban gardens, alternative spaces and initiatives, urban protests, and the conflicts that emerge in public spaces and commons, boundary-making and the interaction between space and people. Lastly, Tanulku works on the Lake District and Cumbria (England), particularly on the interaction between its natural and cultural elements and its culture and wild(er)ness.
Simone Pekelsma is in the final stages of her PhD at Radboud University, the Netherlands. She has great interest in translating her academic work to other worlds, including policy (i.e., Eurocities) and popular science (Geografie Magazine and Agora Magazine). Simone currently works for Utrecht University in a double role. She is a knowledge broker/business developer in human geography and spatial planning and the managing director of a research hub on the future of food.
Liminality, Transgression and Space Across the World
Being,
Living and Becoming(s)
Against,
Across and with Borders and Boundaries
Edited by Basak Tanulku and Simone Pekelsma
First published 2024 by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
The right of Basak Tanulku and Simone Pekelsma to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-032-40803-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-40806-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-35477-2 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003354772
Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC
on the edge
1
1 Shelter – a portrait in transit(ion): Gender and migration 15 JOÃO PEDRO AMORIM
2 Towards a Tranarcha Border framework: Sex, borders, and anarchism 31
ALFONZO MENDOZA
3 The dual nature of the threshold in the pandemic era 47 IOANNA PAPAKONSTANTINOU-BRATI
4 Living on the boundary: Interstitial identities in contemporary Burundi 62 ANTEA PAVIOTTI
5 Liminality when grounded: Micro-mobilities in contemporary art practice during the COVID-19 pandemic 77 PIA JOHNSON AND CLARE MCCRACKEN
6 Birds through my Window: Photography as Liminal Looking 96 KATRIN JOOST (TEXT) AND JOHN DARWELL (IMAGES)
as anti-infrastructure?
from design cultures: Cyprus Pavilions at the Venice Architecture Biennale as transformative proposals for
Epilogue: We are all borderworkers
PASCHALINA T. GARIDOU, LUUK WINKELMOLEN AND HENK VAN
Preface
In today’s world challenged by economic, political, demographic, and technological changes, borders and boundaries are often viewed as obstacles that need demolishing.
Recently, we have also seen more liminality regarding people, places, things, and experiences existing and living outside borders without demolishing them. Sometimes, despite our efforts, there are beings that we cannot categorise. They are beyond borders and boundaries, such as men or women defined outside the gender norms. Liminal people and places cannot be categorised and are challenging to define, include, or exclude. They are in limbo, neither here nor there. Liminality is being confused with many things: hybridity, equality, and borderlessness and also seen as the opposite of borders/boundaries (anti-border).
This book envisions liminality not necessarily as a problem but as a global and ahistorical phenomenon seen across cultures and geographies and analyses various forms of liminality and transgression in different geographies. It also looks at the intersections between borders, boundaries, and liminality.
This book is the fruit of a long and productive friendship, which started due to our shared interest in gated communities. Basak Tanulku, an urban sociologist, and Simone Pekelsma, a human geographer, came together to understand gated communities with a new approach. Our first step was to co-organise a small symposium in Istanbul. The second step was co-organising an online session for the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) Annual Conference 2021. The session brought together scholars from different countries working on gated communities and demonstrated how gated communities and, more generally, boundaries exist in different realms, such as homes, neighbourhoods, and cities across the world, in both the Global North and South.
Gated communities are the epitomes of segregation and exclusivity, but there are other forms of segregation, physically and symbolically. After the successful events mentioned previously, our interest moved beyond gated communities, and we became drawn to other forms of physical and symbolic boundaries.
The book looks at liminality in different scales, such as urban, rural, and the Global North and South. The chapters adopt different approaches and are both empirical and theoretical. Some chapters are written in alternative forms, such as visual essays. Some also question the divides taken as natural, such as man/woman or
nature/culture. Lastly, the book demonstrates that not all borders and boundaries lead to dualities and conflict but to liminality.
The chapters touch on essential subjects such as the following:
• Liminality from micro to macro scales (home, neighbourhood, city, region, etc.);
• The construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction of liminality;
• Intersections between physical and symbolic boundaries and liminality;
• Liminality between public/private, nature/culture, urban/rural, wild/tamed, etc.; and
• Political divides (North/South, East/West).
The book is divided into three sections, beginning with identity and extending to broader realms, such as homes, neighbourhoods, cities, and beyond. As a result, it provides a coherent picture of liminality and transgression found in physical and digital realms, and found between diverse actors, such as men and women and humans and non-humans. The book shows that borders and boundaries do not always create segregation. They also unite different sides and develop new identities and cultures beyond any category or definition.
Acknowledgements
We thank everyone involved in this volume, specifically the authors and reviewers. We thank all support staff at Routledge, and special thanks go to Professor Henk van Houtum, who supported this volume by co-authoring the epilogue. We started working with the authors, reviewers, and the support staff at Routledge when the COVID-19 pandemic imposed restrictions on our physical mobility and social interaction. We are finishing this book when everything seems to have returned to normal. Without their support, this volume would not have been finalised. Dr. Basak Tanulku Independent scholar, Turkey Simone Pekelsma Utrecht University, Netherlands
Contributors
Luiz E. Abreu is a professor of Anthropology at the University of Brasilia, Brazil. His research projects investigate the role of gifts in Brazilian politics, particularly in building majorities in parliament. He is also interested in the relationship between language and ritual practices.
João Pedro Amorim is a visual artist and a PhD candidate at the Research Centre for Science and Technology of the Arts at the School of Arts at Universidade Católica Portuguesa (Porto), Portugal, where he is also a guest assistant professor. His work emerges from speculations around images of different regimes and qualities and on the contemplation of the mechanisms of perception. Working with moving images, photography, and text, he creates surfaces onto which the subject projects itself and discovers the uncertainty of things in the concreteness of matter. His papers have been published in indexed journals (Web of Science and Scopus) and publications such as OnCurating and Membrana.
Alice Buoli is an assistant professor in Urban Design and Planning at the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies, Politecnico di Milano, Italy. Her academic and professional experience combines urban research within the EuroMediterranean context, African urbanism, borderland studies, creative practice research, and editorial and curatorial activities. Over the years, she has been involved in different international projects and institutions, such as the MSC Initial Training Network “ADAPT-r” at the Estonian Academy of Arts in Tallinn (Estonia), the Tallinn Architecture Biennale 2017, and the “Boa_Ma_Nhã, Maputo!” research project at Politecnico di Milano. Her most recent publication includes “Territorial Development and Water-Energy-Food Nexus in the Global South. A Study for the Maputo Province, Mozambique” (2022), co-edited with L. Montedoro and A. Frigerio.
Ann Carragher resides between Lancashire and N. Ireland; she is a PhD (practicebased) candidate and Associate Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) and Blackpool School of Art. Ann is a member of Abingdon Studios, Blackpool, and a founding member of the Proximity Collective established in 2019. Her recent work addresses the states of “in-betweenness” and “liminality” relative to the landscape, borders, and architectural/urban environment. She
presents works that weave together notions of loss and lament by exploring the ambiguous and allusive qualities that manifest (physically and psychologically) in the intersection among space, place, mobility, and memory.
John Darwell is an independent photographer based in the UK who works on longterm projects in social and industrial change, concern for the environment, and issues around the depiction of mental health. Current projects include an ongoing series exploring the complexities of the human/dog relationship, life in rural areas (the English Lake District), and the nature of food consumption. His work has been exhibited and published widely, including eighteen monographs and exhibitions in the UK, the Netherlands, Italy, the USA, Mexico, South America, and the Canary Islands. His work is featured in several important collections, including at the National Museum of Media/Sun Life Collection, (Bradford), the Victoria & Albert Museum, (London), and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, (New York). Until recently, he was Reader in Photography at the University of Cumbria but left academia to concentrate on his practice.
Giulia Degano PhD in Modern and Contemporary Art History from the Society and Culture: History, Anthropology, Art and Heritage program of the Universitat de Barcelona. Lecturer in Contemporary Art History at the G. B. Tiepolo Academy of Fine Arts in Udine. She has lectured at the Universidad del Pacífico, Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas, and Universidad Católica Sede Sapientiae in Lima, Peru.
Paschalina T. Garidou is a PhD researcher in Political Geography at the Nijmegen Centre for Border Research (NCBR), Radboud University, the Netherlands. Paschalina is currently investigating the rich Roman border legacy and afterlife in contemporary European Union (EU) geopolitical and migration affairs, as these are unfolding through her involvement in the “Constructing the Limes” project. Paschalina’s academic interests revolve around the EU external border regime and migration policy, focusing on the Mediterranean.
Shannon Jackson is a professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Sociology and Anthropology Department at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, USA. She teaches and conducts research on Urbanization, Technology, and Embodiment. Her publications include a book based on fieldwork in Cape Town, South Africa titled Embodying Cape Town (2017). She has also published articles based on fieldwork in Kansas City for Technology and Culture and Technology, Knowledge, and Society.
Pia Johnson is an interdisciplinary artist, early-career researcher, and lecturer at the School of Art at RMIT University, Australia, whose practice explores cultural identity, mobility, and migration with notions of performativity and hybridity. Her current research aims to present a re-imaging of cultural identities, diasporas of care, and how we inhabit spaces. By utilising an autoethnographic methodology embedded in contemporary photography languages, her artwork speaks to individual and collective socio-cultural experiences. Pia has
Contributors xiii
exhibited across Australia and internationally and is a regular finalist in photographic awards, and her work is collected in private and public collections, including at the National Gallery of Victoria. She lives in Dja Dja Wurrung country in regional Victoria.
Katrin Joost, the Programme Lead for the BA Photography at Leeds Trinity University, the UK, is an academic and artist. Her work is grounded in Husserlian phenomenology, which underpins her research interests in the philosophy of photography, photography theory, media philosophy, and post-phenomenology. She has published in the field and, more recently, has also become an exhibiting artist. Her practice explores the nature of temporality by focusing on the juxtaposition of stillness and movement in panoramic landscape photography. Recent exhibitions include “River Time,” a reflection on Wordsworth’s poems on the River Duddon, which is a collaboration with the Wordsworth Trust funded by Signal, Film and Media. Previously, Katrin was a director of the biannual conference series under the title Visualising . . . which brought together theorists and practitioners to explore different themes as seen through photography.
Gintarė Kudžmaitė is a social scientist and a visual border research scholar, with a PhD degree from the University of Antwerp in Belgium. She has been actively using visual, linguistic landscaping and participatory and mixed methods to study borders, border experiences, discourses and narratives, and life in the borderlands. She is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at Tampere University in Finland conducting critical EU migration policy analysis by focusing on the rhetoric and issue framing in policy documents.
Clare McCracken is a site-responsive artist, early-career researcher, and the coordinator of Art History, Theory & Cultures at the School of Art at RMIT University, Australia. Her practice-led research sits at the intersection of art, cultural geography, and urban theory. She employs innovative performance methodologies to research how mobility systems coproduce space, place, and landscape across generations in Australia. In 2019, Clare won an RMIT University Research Award in the Higher Degree by Research Impact category for her PhD research.
Alfonzo Mendoza is a third-year Trans/Border Studies PhD student at Arizona State University, USA. They received a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Global Affairs from The University of Texas at San Antonio and a master’s degree in International Affairs from The George Washington University. Their research interests involve settler-colonialism, trans theory, queer theory, critical border studies, decolonial theory, and transnational feminism. Alfonzo’s current projects include deconstructing horror texts through a Queer Latinx lens and theorizing what they refer to as the “Queer Apocalypse” that engages with the intersections of queerness, Blackness/Indigeneity, and futurity at the end of the world.
Jeroen Moes is a senior lecturer at Maastricht University (Research Methodology, Sociology, Political Science). Moes holds a PhD in political and social sciences from the European University Institute, Florence, Italy. He works in the fields of sociology, anthropology, and political science. He has a particular interest in collective identities, inequality, nationalism, European integration, globalisation, and the role of space and place within these subjects. Currently, Moes’ research focuses on issues of identity, inequality, and European integration. His on-going research projects include the symbolic and socio-spatial dimensions of European integration, “Neighbourhoods in Transition,” which looks at issues of gentrification, identity, internationalization, and social class, and “First Generation Academics,” which examines the inequalities and identities amongst students and staff at universities who are the first ones in their families to attend university.
Fernanda Müller is a professor in the Social Sciences Department at the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Her research focuses on the experiences of children in urban areas, specifically, in Brasília, Brazil’s modernist planned capital. Her work explores the intersection of the anthropology of childhood, urban studies, and education.
Ioanna Papakonstantinou-Brati is an architect (Integrated Master in Architecture, Technical University of Crete, Chania, 2018) and a performing pianist (Bachelor in Piano Studies, 2018). She also holds a M.Sc. in Architecture, Space and Culture (2021) from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), where she has continued her research as a PhD candidate since 2022. Her academic path helped her understand that she wants to more deeply study people and cities through the tools of urban geography and urban sociology. Her research interests focus on housing, the relationship between private and public, communing, and spatial justice. She has working experience as a teaching assistant at NTUA in architectural practice, and she is currently a researcher at the Environment Laboratory of the School of Architecture (NTUA) and a consultant on research projects.
Antea Paviotti is an anthropologist and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Antwerp (Belgium). During her PhD research, she analysed the work of boundary-making and -remaking in how Burundians identify themselves and others in their everyday life. In addition to ethnographic research in Burundi, she researches boundary-making on social media. Online, she studies the dynamics leading to the formation and consolidation of (ethnic) communities and the interactions between them.
Simone Pekelsma is in the final stages of her PhD at Radboud University, the Netherlands. She has great interest in translating her academic work to other worlds, including policy (i.e., Eurocities) and popular science (Geografie Magazine and Agora Magazine). Simone currently works for Utrecht University in a double role. She is a knowledge broker/business developer in human geography
Contributors xv and spatial planning and the managing director of a research hub on the future of food.
Sam Rumé is an early career researcher who recently obtained his PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Manchester, the UK. He has conducted extensive fieldwork in Ecuador specifically focused on sustainable urbanism and mobilities in Cuenca. He explores the cosmopolitics of urban assemblages and brings together reflections on infrastructures, mobilities, heritages, natures, and modernities.
Basak Tanulku is an urban sociologist based in Istanbul, Turkey with a PhD in sociology from Lancaster University in the UK. Although gated communities are regarded as exclusionary and segregating housing forms, Tanulku focused on various interactions inside and outside gated communities in her PhD research. As a result, Tanulku interpreted gated communities as housing forms that use various forms of boundaries (physical and symbolic/abstract), which are in continuous change and they are relational and diverse housing forms. Since then, Tanulku has worked on different subjects, such as urban transformation and vacancy, urban gardens, alternative spaces and initiatives, urban protests, and the conflicts emerging in public spaces and commons. More generally, Tanulku is interested in boundary-making and the interaction between space and people. Lastly, Tanulku works on the Lake District and Cumbria (England) particularly on the interaction between its natural and cultural elements and its culture and wild(er)ness. Tanulku has published extensively on peer-reviewed journals such as Geoforum, Housing Studies and Journal of Cultural Geography and chapters in edited books.
Henk van Houtum is a professor of Geopolitics and Political Geography at Radboud University and Co-Founder and Head of the Nijmegen Centre for Border Research (NCBR), the Netherlands. He teaches the courses Borders and Identities in Europe, Geopolitics of Bordering, and Mapping. He has written extensively on global justice, the philosophy of borders, b/ordering and othering, borderism, the global apartheid of visa borders, the autoimmunity of EU’s border policy, (undocumented) immigration, cross-border cooperation, borderlands, the geography and geopolitics of football, and the cartography of borders and migration.
Luuk Winkelmolen is a PhD researcher in political geography at the Nijmegen Centre for Border Research (NCBR), Radboud University, Nijmegen. He is currently involved in the project “Constructing the Limes,” for which he researches the legacy and interpretation of the Roman era for contemporary thinking about territories, borders, and migration. Specifically, his research interests include how populist and conservative politicians geopolitically instrumentalize the past to popularize and legitimize b/ordering and othering practices in the present.
Introduction
Living on the edge
Basak Tanulku and Simone Pekelsma
A movie titled “Border” by director Ali Abbasi displays the life of Tina, who checks passengers at airport border security. The movie is about the quest for Tina’s identity and allows the audience to think about the blurring borders between different identities (gender and human). Tina is a liminal subject, regarded as neither human nor non-human and neither woman nor man, working at the border, a liminal site between countries.
Tina’s story can help us to understand the recent demolition of borders, such as those among gender, race, identity, nationality, etc. The boundaries that we thought existed naturally and eternally between various realms such as man/woman, nature/culture, and human/non-human are increasingly challenged. Take gender as an example. Currently, the definition of gender has expanded beyond the traditional binary distinctions between men and women. It encompasses non-binary definitions and representations in areas such as fashion, arts, and social media.
This book focuses on liminal subjects, places, and experiences by challenging the world based on categorisation, hierarchy, and exclusion. They are in limbo, neither here nor there. Liminality allows us to ask ontological questions about the self and the other and think about how we would define everything without borders
Although liminality seems to be in the minority, it is more common than we think: we remain in limbo when we wait for something, an outcome of an application, marriage, or divorce. We remain in limbo when we face significant decisions such as choosing between opposing sides: families and significant others, ourselves, and our duties. In a time when we question and deconstruct boundaries and borders, liminality comes as a saviour to define the undefined. Liminality is an answer for the continuously shifting world as the antithesis of rigidity. Liminality is a concept coherent with the necessities of globalisation. We change our jobs, careers, and homes continuously. We go with the wind.
Liminality refers to temporality and transience. Consider the urban space you use every day. What about it at night? What about your summer resort during the winter? Liminality also represents the experience. For example, you become a flaneur in the city and walk around its streets without following any guide or rule. The physical world contains liminal areas, whether in urban or rural settings. Again, liminal spaces, such as airports and hotels, are used temporarily. However, a liminal space for one person may be permanent for others. Think about the flaneur
wandering the streets, which contain permanent homes and offices of others. Alternatively, consider your home’s liminality where each room can be multi-functional and used for dining, eating, and partying.
Some concepts are often confused with liminality, such as hybridity, which combines different features to create something new. However, liminality is different from hybridity. Hybrid is still an identifiable thing. Liminality is not. It is more dangerous, uncanny, and something or someone we know but cannot remember its name. Historically, there was the outlaw and the scapegoat, religious heretics, or stateless people. However, these can be defined as transgressive subjects or outsiders (outside the borders). Instead, liminality is more dangerous than outsiders because it is difficult to define, such as UFOs – unidentified objects or beings.
We hear more about liminality because we live in an era of dissolution and demolition, from family to religion and from nation to morality and ethics. All have been dissolved but have not yet created a world that includes everyone and is formed by everyone. Instead, we have small patches or islands separated from one another where everyone has their own rules, ethics, and reality. Truth is no longer single. Instead, we live in an era of post-truth. The unity has been divided. Liminality looks like an answer to the shapeless world we live in.
Liminality exists with borders and vice versa. Once borders are abolished, there is no need to liminality. However, this does not mean that liminality is the opposite of borders (anti-border). Instead, it is neither side. There are black and white. Liminality is different from “grey” which reflects a hybrid of black and white. It is neither black nor white. Liminality does not mean “equality” as well, and it is not the answer to heal inequality. It refers to being out-of-the-box. There are famous examples for these.
Consider Yin and Yang; each part has a tiny amount of the opposite. If we remove the borders of one, then the other could invade. Therefore, dismantling borders does not necessarily lead to a world without borders. For example, since the Berlin Wall separating East and West Berlin was demolished, there has no longer been communism or socialism in their conventional meanings. Instead, almost the entire world has been included in the borders of neoliberal capitalism, which has not created a borderless or equal world but a neoliberal capitalist world with extended borders.
Moreover, when all borders are demolished, all parts can become the same, with no difference, which can be mistakenly confused with equality. In this case, there would not be a liminal or transgressive subject because everyone would be the same with no need for equality or diversity. Does being all grey mean an equal world? Where is the diversity when we demolish the black-and-white world and create a grey totality? How do we define the self and others when everyone looks or is the same? Liminality is then different from “hybridity”, “equality”, or “borderlessness”. Liminality does not also mean moving and changing, it might be fixed and static. Instead, as more recent literature argues borders/boundaries are the ones which change and move continuously (Brambilla et al., 2015; Fourny, 2013; Szary & Giraut, 2015; Van Houtum, 2012).
A short review of liminality and transgression
“Liminal” comes from the Latin “limen” with plural “limina” and means “of, relating to, or situated at a sensory threshold: barely perceptible or capable of eliciting a response and second, of, relating to, or being an intermediate state, phase, or condition (in-between, transitional).”1 “Transgression” comes from Middle English, Middle French, and Latin and is an “act of crossing, passing over” from transgredi “to step or pass over.”2
Although we can see and define borders and boundaries, liminality is difficult to define. However, liminality has always existed at the margins of human civilisation. For example, borderlands are sites where different and mostly opposing sides clash, which creates liminal sites, such as the Anglo-Scottish Borders. Liminality and transgression have always existed at the margins of human civilisation. History is full of stories of legendary subjects who belonged to neither side, such as human gods, fairies, or human-animal hybrids, such as werewolves, centaurs, satyrs, and sphinx. Ghosts or hauntings can be seen as a form of liminality between life and death, real and unreal, and normal and paranormal. During Halloween, the borders between our world and the other world diminish, leading to a liminal realm where living and dead can meet. In monotheistic religions, people go to Purgatory after they die and wait there until they go to their final destination of Heaven or Hell. Transgressive subjects live on the edge, such as travellers wandering around. Troubadours, knights, and bards sang folk stories across Europe during the Middle Ages. These subjects are liminal and in-between who do not belong to any order or state.
All religions have established a system of inclusion and exclusion based on strong binaries between haram and halal, good and evil, and right and wrong. The modern national state has replaced the religious dogma and created its hierarchy, order, and power. Modernism established strong binaries between right and wrong based on modern morality and ethics in which everything and everyone had a position and role that were clearly defined.
Both religion and modernity created their enemies, outlaws, or scapegoats. Religion’s enemy was the heretic who did not follow God’s path. Modernity’s enemy was the outlaw who did not obey the rules of the modern and secular nation (citizenship). Liminality and transgression have always existed with borders, but they were regarded as negative aspects of an orderly (and Godly) world.
However, more recently, how they are interpreted has changed, and they are now being regarded as more positive. Liminality has received attention in academic studies (Babcock, 2001; Thomassen, 2009, 2015, 2016; Horvath et al., 2015). Anthropologist Arnold Van Gennep first used “liminality” to refer to an intermediate process, a transition from one stage to another, such as adolescence to adulthood, that is called a “rite of passage” (1960). Next, Victor Turner argued that liminality refers to situations or people left in between. Van Gennep focused on rituals, whereas Turner focused on small societies to explore liminality (Turner,
1967). The recent interest in liminality emerged due to several interrelated developments in the sciences and everyday life:
• Binary thinking has been challenged by complexity theory and quantum physics, which has also changed our understanding of the physical world. The world is now more complex and relational rather than fixed and absolute (Best & Keller, 1997; McClellan, 1993; Ginn & Demeritt, 2009; Gere, 2019).
• Everyday life has changed due to technological developments such as the Internet and computing, which leads to a different notion of time that transforms from linear to non-linear.
• Everyday life has also become more diverse and public space is more fragmented due to the emergence of multiple identities (and non-binary), which challenge monolithic cultures.
Liminality is studied in the fields of space, identity, and experience (time and transience) and their intersections. First, regarding space, liminality is studied in human geography, planning, urban studies, architecture, and landscaping (Andrews & Roberts, 2012; Shields, 1991; Stavrides, 2007). “Space” is regarded as a liminal and mobile dimension. Binaries or divides are replaced by networks, leading to a more complex understanding of space. Geography has also focused on liminal spaces or the liminality of spaces, as Banfield (2022) argued. Banfield also added that liminality has lost its primary anthropological meaning of ritual transformation as used by Van Gennep and Turner. Instead, it currently refers to different meanings that challenge binary thinking while prioritising hybridity and thresholds (Banfield, 2022).
Although modernism created space divided by strong borders, such as inside and outside, private and public, work and home, and urban and rural, they have been demolished or reduced. The current city and countryside have become difficult to define (due to shifting borders, changing inhabitants and cultures, etc.). There are many concepts to define areas that are neither urban nor rural: peri-urban, ex-urban, edge lands, etc. We now have urban wildlife, such as deer, fox, and boar, roaming beside our pets, and as explained by Jorgensen and Tylecote, there are “ambivalent landscapes” or “interstitial wilderness” at urban peripheries (2007). Where should the boundaries be drawn between wilderness and civilisation? As Sarah Hall’s novel suggests, where does the “wolf border” begin, which divides the wilderness from our civilised world (Hall, 2015)? The need for a new understanding of cities has been discussed in the literature (Merrifield, 2013). Moreover, to challenge the hegemonic divide between urban and rural, a more nuanced division between the two realms has been proposed (Jansson, 2013).
The design of homes and cities has evolved into a more fluid understanding of space that meets the needs of a diverse and complex society. “Liminal spaces” were first developed by Dutch architect Aldo van Eyck, who designed in-between places to feel the dual phenomena of the opposite, such as inside/outside, public/ private, etc. (Eyck, 2008). Spaces have multiple functions and are shifting, while the boundaries between public and private and inside and outside are blurred. New
fields of study have emerged in the intersections among planning, architecture, and design to explore temporary urban spaces impacted by post- or de-industrialisation that leaves old industrial areas to rot (for research on liminal urban spaces and dereliction, see Al Shrbaji, 2020). These unused areas are transformed into new developments (housing, retail, business, or mixed-use) by developers. However, some sites are temporarily repurposed for various needs, often through a grassroots approach rather than intervention from professionals, such as designers or developers (Carmona, 2015; Colomb, 2017; Deslandes, 2013; Madanipour, 2013; Mitchell, 2016; Tanulku, 2017; Vasudevan, 2014). In addition, the high street (the main street of a city or town where the shops are clustered), which experiences decay, is being transformed into temporary and multi-functional spaces, such as pop-up stores. In this context, urban space has become continuously temporary rather than fixed and permanent. As Henneberry argues, we live in a state of “permanent transience” (Henneberry, 2017).
Liminality also refers to spaces or landscapes, such as marshlands and coasts, that are not land, water, or sky (for a piece on the beach as a liminal space, see Preston-Whyte, 2004). Additionally, there are liminal spaces due to their transience, such as airports, stations, hotels (Downey et al., 2016; Horvath et al., 2020; Anderson, 2020; Imai, 2013; Marinaro, 2022; Otto & Berthier-Foglar, 2020; Rice & Littlefield, 2014; Roberts, 2018), or prisons (Moran, 2013). Workspaces can also have liminal elements or corners, such as toilets or staircases, that are for neither working nor dwelling. They are “liminal spaces of organisational life” (Shortt, 2015). Liminality is also studied in the field of border studies related to questioning nation-state borders (borderscapes and borderlands) (Decker & Winchock, 2017; Dimova, 2021), and borders are interpreted as mobile and liminal (Fourny, 2013). There are also spaces used temporarily or built for temporary uses, such as tents or prefabs, and mobile homes, such as caravans.
Second, liminality has been examined as a separate field within identity studies. There is growing literature on liminality in queer studies (Ahmed, 2006; Besnier, 1994; Binnie, 1997; Browne et al., 2010; Hines, 2010; Longhurst, 2005; March, 2020; Whitney, 2008; Wilson, 2002) and studies about the intersectionality of identity (Crenshaw, 1991; Bobel & Kwan, 2019). Liminality also refers to different readings of gender identity (heterosexual) while challenging strong binaries and well-defined gender roles (Gibson & Vanderveen, 2021; Sweeney, 2009). The recent emergence of non-binary identities in the field of gender, is an example of liminality. A non-binary definition of gender means attaining a gender identity outside the binary between men and women. Moreover, non-binary people use “they/ them/their” when they refer to themselves (a generic and genderless pronoun) (Greey, 2019). Hybrid identities emerge due to increasing migration and global flows of people and cultures. Relatedly, “statelessness” is another concept that has emerged due to increasing crossings and mobility across borders worldwide. Mobility is a characteristic not only of refugees or migrants but also of ex-pats and highly-paid transnational workers who are less tied to their country of origin due to their mobile lifestyle. The concept of belonging now encompasses multiple places rather than a single one (Ali, 2020; Ibarra & Obodaru, 2016).
There are also science and technology studies that focus on the cyborg and animal studies on more-than-human (animal and non-human) subjects, all challenging the uniqueness of “human” as the single actor dominating the Earth and biocentrism over other “living beings” (Allen, 2007; Haraway, 1991; Hobson-West, 2007; Howell, 2020; Moll & Law, 2002; Puar, 2012; Ritvo, 1995; Wolch & Emel, 1998). Although they are antithetical to each other, animals and cyborgs, one biological and the other hybrid, challenge and dethrone the human’s central position in the universe. Cyborgs can be regarded as a hybrid of humans and machines, while animals are sentient non-human. Tissues or organs needed in medicine can be created by combining human and animal DNA, resulting in hybrids. The definition of these hybrids is still unclear. We may see the creation of new hybrid species, such as contemporary centaurs or satyrs. Only time will tell.
Third, liminality is interpreted as an experience and temporality (Stenner, 2017). In this respect, liminality approaches its primary and conventional meaning used by Van Gennep as “transition.” Specifically, liminality refers to transitions and temporal experiences, such as COVID-19 lockdowns. In this context, “Anthropause” refers to the declining human effect during the lockdowns (Rutz et al., 2020). Festivals and concerts can be considered liminal experiences that transform participants during that specific time (Lamond & Moss, 2020; Pielichaty, 2015). In addition, as explained by Peterson, protests can be regarded as liminal since, during these times, the political and social order is paused or demolished without creating a new one (Peterson, 2015). Hotels and other touristic spaces (e.g., Ibiza) can also be liminal since people embrace their true selves (Pritchard & Morgan, 2006). During these social or individual pausing events, such as holidays, festivals, or protests, the borders between various realms (people, things, and spaces) diminish and become synergy and “unity,” demolishing all personal, social, and spatial boundaries. Here liminality approaches “hybridity” and “fusion.” These events can also be interpreted as experiences when individuals leave behind their “ego” and reveal their “id” or true self, without the pressures of everyday life.
Liminality has additionally been the subject of art (Broadhurst, 1999). First, there is art about liminality, which explores various forms of liminality emerging from various reasons such as climate change, conflicts and increasing number of migrants and refugees. As a result, liminality has become an essential subject in the arts, similar to the social sciences. In this context, the arts have served as a means of resistance and activism that allow communication between conflicting parties and add aesthetic value and positivity to daily life. The arts can demolish borders and look at liminal subjects and places. Murals and graffiti are parts of this process by colouring walls with optimism, aesthetics, humour, and communication (arts beyond/against/anti/borders). Second, there is liminal art that is about the technique used in the arts and the role of different disciplines (multi- or interdisciplinarity). The emergence of new art forms involves combining various techniques, approaches, and artists, resulting in a hybrid art form. Moreover, contemporary arts aim to demolish barriers between everyday life and art to demonstrate that daily life can be art and vice versa.
The book
This book is the fruit of a long friendship that started due to our shared research interest in gated communities. Although we come from different disciplines, namely, urban sociology and human geography, our research focuses on gated communities’ relationalities with different realms. We both go beyond the simple binaries between inside/outside, safe/dangerous, and private/public and look at how gated communities create blurring boundaries between them. As Tanulku argues in her PhD research and following works, the concept of “relational opposite” is helpful in defining the world, which refers to a binary formed in relation to others (Tanulku, 2016). “Relational opposite” unifies and brings together conflicting sides. In this context, gated communities (like anything else) act in binaries with regard to others (Tanulku, 2010, 2012, 2016).
We approach space as a relational and non-fixed realm which reflects diverse cultures and intersectional identities (Jones, 2009; Massey, 1991). When we heard that the theme of the RGS-IBG Annual Conference 2021 was “Borders, Borderlands and Bordering,” we co-organised an online session called “Gated Communities: Making and Unmaking Physical and Symbolic Boundaries,” which brought together six papers from different countries showing the diversity of this global phenomenon.3
We wanted to carry forward these debates and opened a call for chapters on contemporary forms of (symbolic and physical) boundaries and how they unfold in space. As a result of interest, we created two books: the first about borders and boundaries and the second on liminality and transgression.
In this book, we aim to understand and analyse liminality. First, we define what we mean by liminality. We define liminality as anything, anyone, or experience that does not belong to either side, which is something difficult to define, judge, or value. According to Achille Varzi, in geography, there are two forms of vagueness: first, conceptual vagueness in representing geographical entities such as a mountain, lake, or river, which can differ according to the approach/method. Second, there is a vague object that cannot be defined or is difficult to define (the difference between semantic and ontic vagueness) (Varzi, 2001). We approach liminality as the second form, and extend this to non-geographical realms such as subjects and experiences. We argue that liminal subjects and geographies are thresholds with porous borders that do not belong anywhere. We argue that liminal experience is a transition period or “process;” it is not about being but becoming, a never-ending process.
We define transgression as anything, anyone, or experience against the order or rule. Transgression is different from liminality since transgression disturbs an order or rule. People can punish transgressive acts or people when they go beyond borders. To be transgressive, there must be a border/boundary to be crossed. Instead, liminal does not do this explicitly. It does not go beyond the borders. It stays on the borders, going nowhere and belonging nowhere People have difficulty judging and punishing liminality.
Second, regarding the context, we do not consider only one form of liminality in this book. Instead, we aim to critically examine how different liminality forms unfold in different geographies. We see liminality as a global and timeless phenomenon across cultures and geographies. The book consists of empirical and theoretical chapters from different geographies that use different approaches and methods of investigation and disciplines, such as sociology, anthropology, human geography, planning, urban studies, architecture, and visual and performing arts. The book also provides case studies from the past and present, allowing readers to connect subjects. It includes chapters written by academics and professionals at different stages of their careers, demonstrating the importance of the subject and providing fresh perspectives from different career paths. The book also provides some works by artists that complete the theoretical and empirical chapters. The authors analyse several subjects: identity, gender, ethnicity, migration and refugees, national/regional borders, neighbourhoods, infrastructure, gated housing developments, inequality, and activism. They address “classical” liminality in the context of nation-states and ask new questions about COVID-19, and lockdowns, and the digital world. The book extends its focus beyond many realms, such as homes, neighbourhoods, cities, the countryside, and the Global North and South. Some chapters also question the divides taken as natural, such as those between man/woman and nature/culture, and political divides, such as the North/South.
Some chapters also demonstrate the interrelationships between borders, boundaries, and liminality and aim to understand why boundaries lead to liminality, such as gated communities, which are regarded as one of the most segregated forms of housing. For example, consider fences or walls that divide cities, regions, or countries. People demolish them or create connections between different sides in some contexts. The walls of an old house, the usual decor in horror movies, are an excellent example of how borders and liminality are interrelated. In most horror movies, the protagonist discovers a hidden chamber once he sees a leaking wall. Instead, the wall, which should protect and hide things, reveals a secret. These walls play a crucial role in such movies by revealing the truth behind the hauntings or other strange events. Walls not only hide but also reveal things. Walls, fences, and borders do not always lead to segregation and exclusion but also produce liminality (regarding space, identity, culture, and experience), showing the complexity of the phenomenon. It seems like an oxymoron, but borders can unite different sides to develop new identities and cultures beyond any category or definition.
To facilitate the journey into liminality in different realms, the book consists of three sections, first, “Liminality, identity and space”, second, “Liminality and the city,” and third, “Liminality across and beyond the country.”
3 See Tanulku et al. (2021) Gated communities in a world without borders. https://blog. geographydirections.com/2021/12/06/gated-communities-in-a-world-without-borders/
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Direct methods
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Title: Direct methods
Author: Thomson Burtis
Release date: October 3, 2023 [eBook #71780]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: The Ridgway Company, 1922
Credits: Roger Frank and Sue Clark
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIRECT METHODS ***
DIRECT METHODS
by Thomson Burtis
Author of “There and Back,” “Feud’s End,” etc.
A De Haviland airplane was spiraling down over the level expanse of Langham Field. As the slim young pilot in the front seat slowly throttled the big Liberty motor which had carried the ship from Washington, the passenger peered down interestedly. Twenty-two massive twin-motored bombers were lined up on the Eastern edge of the field, nose to nose in two lines. They looked like waiting monsters, slothful but terrible in their suggestion of power. The sinking sun sent shafts of light flashing from the metal, and as the dropping De Haviland gave the two flyers constantly changing angles of vision it seemed as though the ships were alive, so blinding was the play of light from glistening turn-buckles and the glass covers of the instruments on each motor.
The D. H. landed lightly, the pilot taking unusual care to avoid running into the lines of ships which cut off a quarter of the field. He taxied to the line. Before he had finished running the gas out of his motor his passenger was out of the back cockpit and had removed the flying coveralls he wore. He was in civilian clothes. He took a soft hat from the rear, put it on, lit a cigar and waited for the pilot.
When that gentleman had leaped out and lit a cigaret the civilian stretched out his hand.
“Thank you, lieutenant, that was fine. I enjoyed it greatly. Would you mind seeing to it that my suitcase is unstrapped and sent up to General O’Malley’s office? Thank you. That is headquarters up there, is it not?”
“Yes, sir—General O’Malley’s headquarters.”
“See you later, I hope. Good-by.”
He walked briskly down the row of tremendous corrugated iron hangars. He did not stop to inspect in detail the overgrown Handley Pages and Capronis and Martin bombers, although his brilliant dark
eyes rested continuously on the line of ships. De Havilands and S. E. 5 scouts were constantly landing and taking off. Once he did stop in his tracks to watch five S. E’s. take off in a V formation, scoot a mile north of the field, and then line up in single file. One by one they dived—dived until the sing of the wires could be heard on the field. As they came perilously near the ground they would suddenly straighten. At that instant an egg-shaped projectile left the ship and hurtled groundward. In a few seconds came the explosion.
“Small bombs,” the civilian told himself as he resumed his walk to brigade headquarters. “I wonder whether some of them could be used⸺ ”
A seven-passenger army car stopped beside him. He looked up quickly into the face of a portly man wearing the insignia of a lieutenant-colonel.
“Can I give you a ride, Mr. Graves?” inquired the colonel, getting out of the car.
“Thank you, but I’m just going up to headquarters. But you have the advantage of me sir.”
“I met you in Rome in 1918,” stated the colonel. “My name is Sax.”
“You have a better memory than I, colonel. But I was there. Glad to have seen you again. Good-by.”
He walked on, leaving the colonel to climb back into the car.
“Now that’s funny. I’d give a little piece of change to find out just what that fellow’s business is,” muttered the portly officer as he settled himself in the car.
Graves walked into the small, one-story frame building which had been dignified into Headquarters of the First Provisional Air Brigade, and walked over to the sergeant-major’s desk. Evidently he knew something about the army.
“Mr. Graves, to see the adjutant,” he stated.
He spoke with a certain preciseness in a modulated voice that instinctively gave one an impression of culture and refinement.
“Yes, sir.”
The sergeant-major disappeared into the adjutant’s office with unusual expedition, returning in a few seconds to say—
“All right, sir.”
The captain who arose as Mr Graves walked into his office gave him a quick survey in which interest and appraisal were equally mingled. Graves had removed his hat, revealing thick, iron-gray hair which lent distinction and force to his appearance. He was a little above medium height, and the unobtrusive perfection of his clothing hid a pair of stalwart shoulders which a wrestler would have had no reason to be ashamed of.
“I have an appointment with General O’Malley, captain,” said Graves.
“Yes indeed. The general is ready to see you.”
The captain motioned toward the closed door which led from his office.
“Thank you.”
Graves walked over to the door, opened it, and closed it again behind him after entering the inner office. In both speech and action he appeared to be a very direct gentleman with a pronounced disinclination to waste either time or words.
“General
O’Malley?”
“Yes.
I’m glad to know you, Mr. Graves.”
As the two men shook hands there was a pause lasting several seconds. Eye to eye, they adjudged each other as strong men will when each knows that the other is worthy of his steel.
Graves knew that before him was perhaps the most brilliant and audacious of the younger officers of the army—the great chief of a hazardous service which even then was preparing to prove that its fledgeling wings would carry it far beyond where anyone save its officers believed it could go. As for the general, he had in his desk a letter from the Secretary of War—a brief note which stated succinctly that Mr. Graves would be treated with the utmost consideration, be cooperated with to the fullest extent, and that he carried with him authority the nature of which he personally would divulge.
O’Malley watched his visitor closely as he turned to find a chair. There was a change in his appearance when seen in profile which was almost startling. Full-face, his countenance was broad and strong, with the high forehead of a student and the slightly tightened lips of a firmly molded character. In profile Graves looked like a hawk
—one saw that his nose jutted aggressively from his face, and that both forehead and chin subtly strengthened the impression. Even his body seemed thinner and taller.
Graves deliberately flipped the ash from his cigar and then reset the weed in his wide, slightly drooping mouth. His brilliant eyes rested on the general’s face.
“General, I have here some papers for your inspection, in order that you may become somewhat acquainted with my mission. Needless to say, not a soul aside from ourselves and persons whom I may find it necessary to tell must know even a detail of the matter.”
Very few men would have spoken as tersely and directly to O’Malley. The general, however, merely nodded.
“I surmised as much,” he said quietly.
Graves drew a thin, long envelope from his pocket and presented it to O’Malley. It did not take the general long to read the enclosure. It was signed by a very great and powerful government official, and left no doubt as to Mr. Graves’ position.
The general reread the last sentence.
“—and is hereby empowered to use any methods he sees fit to accomplish his mission, which is one of the gravest importance to the welfare of the United States.”
“So-o-o,” said the general at length, laying down the document slowly. “And what is it you wish, Mr. Graves?”
“First let me find out whether I am correct on all points or not. You have gathered here, as I understand it, the veteran pilots of the Air Service to take part in the coming bombing tests. You likewise have concentrated here for the use of the Air Brigade the most up-to-date material the Air Service has.”
“Correct. Right here, Mr. Graves, is probably the best organization of its size the Air Service of any country has ever known. With those Martin bombers out there, manned by the pilots of this brigade, we are ready this minute to back up all our claims, and you know we made some!”
O’Malley joined in Graves’ spontaneous laugh over that last forceful statement. The general’s adventures in trying to put across
some of the things he wished to do in the Air Service had been diversified, to say the least. He was a firebrand whom every one simply had to like or dislike—there was no middle ground.
The flyers of his service idolized him. Flyers, being on the whole of a type a little different from the general run, it follows that many good men would dislike and distrust O’Malley for the same things which his young men loved.
“Well, general, here is my mission in a nutshell. You know by the papers, if through no other means, of the series of tremendous mail robberies, totaling millions, which culminated in the half-million dollar haul near Cleveland two months ago.”
O’Malley nodded.
“Operatives of our service, after months of patient and very skilful work, have run down what we believe to be the greatest criminal organization of its kind the country ever saw. It is almost a certainty that every mail robbery of any size since 1919 has been engineered and carried to a successful completion by this organization.
“The group is so powerful and so wise that its ramifications are almost unbelievable. We don’t know all about them yet, but we do know that its organization includes agents all over the country for the safe disposal of securities and other valuables; that it includes brokers, business men, cracksmen, gunmen, government employees. The brains of the gang, the man to whom all credit for the conception and execution of these tremendous crimes and the organization of the whole thing goes is Stanislaus Hayden.
“I won’t bore you with his history—suffice it to say that he is one of the most remarkable combinations of brilliancy, far-sightedness, and executive ability that I have ever known about. If he were anything but a mentally and morally warped specimen, he might have been another Morgan or Stinnes.
“Now here is the situation. Hayden is at present in West Virginia. He is living on the top of a mountain in Farran County, miles from the nearest town. With him are several underlings—I believe them to be some of the men who actually pull the robberies themselves. Just why they are living in seclusion up there I do not exactly know, but I presume that it is first of all a good hiding place, and secondly that it
keeps Hayden away from the surveillance of the police. He has been mixed up in some monumental deals—or at least suspected so strongly that he is watched—but for two years he has fooled us completely on this new organization of his. What makes him unusually dangerous aside from his ability is the loyalty he inspires in those under him—rather a combination of loyalty and fear, I should say. Anyway, a few small potatoes whom we have nabbed quietly will tell nothing. Apparently they realize that he is a really great commander-in-chief, and trust him to help them.”
“But how did he⸺ ”
“How he got into West Virginia I do not know. A year ago he dropped from sight, and the operative who finally traced him down has no idea when he came into that part of the country. I believe that the gang planned to quit operations before long, and that for months Hayden has been a hermit simply making his pile with the idea of retiring on his money in the near future. He would not be safe in any city in the country to carry on his operations.”
Graves talked as precisely as ever. Every word was clear-cut and incisive. His slim, long-fingered hands were motionless except as he carried his cigar to his lips. He paused a moment to get up and drop the stub into the ash receiver.
“As I said, Hayden is staying on the top of a mountain in Farran County with some henchmen. There is no question that all of them would fight to the death—you know what the Postmaster General announced recently about mail-robbers, do you not?”
“It was plenty,” nodded O’Malley.
“There are several facets to the situation. In the first place, that little nucleus of men is well supplied with artillery and ammunition ranging from machine-guns down. In the second place, their dwelling place is so strategically advantageous that it might take a hundred men dead and wounded before they could be captured. The only road leading to the hunting cabin where Hayden has his headquarters is narrow and winding, like all those mountain roads, and by reason of a three or four hundred foot precipice and some other details of the country a dozen men could hold the place for a considerable time against ten times their number.
“But most important, we want Hayden alive, and the fact that we have him must be unknown. As I said, we know vaguely, without many details, that he heads this vast organization. But we have come to a stone wall in our efforts to find who the biggest culprits under him are, or all the ramifications of the conspiracy. We believe that Hayden is the only living man—at least the only one we can get our hands on—who can tell all. And the moment he was killed or it was known that he was captured, every criminal under him would be gone. The organization would probably disappear in a night. My mission is to capture him, alive, and with nobody but the men with him in that cabin knowing it. We will see to it that they do not spread the news, because every escape they have will be guarded, and they will be in a state of siege up there without any method of sending news to the outside world. Their immediate capture is unimportant, but we can take no chances of an attack for fear of killing Hayden. If we get him, we can make him talk, I believe. We will use almost any measures.”
“You have quite a contract, I should say,” remarked the general, tapping on his desk with a penholder. “I thought I might have a glimmering of what you wanted from us, but what you say about getting him alive changes things.”
“No, I don’t want any bombs dropped on him,” returned Graves with a smile. It was a singularly warm and winning smile, lightening the subtle hardness of his face. The sardonic hint around his mouth disappeared, and his eyes seemed to reflect the smile in their depths.
“Now as to what I do want,” he went on after a moment. He seemed to be incapable of detouring for more than the smallest of intervals from the business at hand. “It would be impossible for any of our operatives to get close enough to the place to capture Hayden without publicity, or without fighting for their lives, except in the manner I have in mind. Before I describe to you my proposed method of getting Hayden, I want my men. Then I need only discuss the matter once.”
“Just as you choose.”
“I want two pilots and a Martin bomber, equipped with extra gas and oil and heavy machine-gun equipment—all she’ll handle, in case
we need them. These two pilots—the ideal ones for my purpose— would be A. 1. flyers, first. That is probably the easiest of my requirements.”
“You can’t throw a stone out of this window without hitting a real pilot,” stated the general. “We have the finest personnel in the world.”
“I am inclined to believe you are right, general. Now secondly, it would be advisable that they be older men—none of your brilliant kids. Nobody must know that Hayden is captured—before a breath of it gets out we must make him talk, and then come down on his men all over the country in one swoop that will be the biggest coup in the history of the Department of Justice, so far as straight criminality goes. For this and other reasons, these fellows must be men of the utmost discretion.”
“I can readily see your point,” agreed O’Malley, lighting a cigaret.
“Next, I want men who have knocked around quite a bit— resourceful, able to handle themselves in any kind of a shindig whatsoever, and not afraid of ⸺ or high water. Rather the soldier of fortune type, you know—I think you get my idea. They will be asked to volunteer to do this thing with me, as a sporting proposition and as a duty to the United States. Although this method of capturing Hayden is rather forced on me by circumstances, I believe that you can fix me up with men whom I can depend on.”
The irrepressible O’Malley’s mouth widened into a grin as Graves finished.
“You are paying the Air Service a great compliment, Graves,” he said.
Graves relaxed briefly.
“You’ve got an outfit, I know,” he admitted. “I wouldn’t trust the accomplishing one of the biggest things I’ve ever worked on to strangers if I didn’t believe it.”
Then he started hammering away again. The general got the impression of resistless tenacity about him—the feeling that until his job was done the aristocratic, meticulous Mr. Graves could never be swerved for an instant from his progress toward the goal he was endeavoring to reach.
“Can you produce two such men—and if so, how quickly, general?”
O’Malley did not answer for fully two minutes. He placed two immaculately booted and spurred feet on his desk, sunk into his chair, and thoughtfully smoked. Then he reached for the bell on his desk.
The adjutant entered and saluted.
“Get me Lieutenants Broughton and Hinkley, Evans. Tell them to report to me at once. Use every effort to get them, regardless of whether they are on the post or not.”
“Yes, sir.”
Captain Evans saluted stiffly and went out.
“I think these two men fit your description best, Graves. I’ll admit I’m curious to know just what you want with them. Broughton is an old first-sergeant out of the artillery. Got his commission in the artillery and transferred to the Air Service. A ⸺ good big-ship pilot, too. Hinkley is a long, lean, sardonic bird who has the coldest nerve I ever saw and gives not three hoots in hallelujah for anything or anybody. Both of them flew on Border patrol for two years— Broughton out of Nogales and Hinkley—an observer until recently— at Marfa. Broughton is a nut about guns, and one of the best pistol shots I ever saw. Can draw and throw a gun and fan it and all that. I’m a fair shot myself, but he is wonderful. How good Hinkley is on that stuff I don’t know, but I do know he’s been a captain in the army of Brazil, and a sailor from the Horn to Bering Sea. Both of them around thirty, I think.”
“They sound available,” granted Graves.
He relapsed into silence. After a moment or two he took out another cigar, offered it to the general, who refused, and finally lit it himself. His gaze rested for a moment on the line of great bombers which he could partially see through the open window.
“Bombing today?” he inquired.
“Just practise. Those ships out there are all loaded with thousandpounders—we practise tomorrow on the hulk of an old battleship out in Chesapeake Bay. The first test is only two weeks away.”
“Going to make the grade?” inquired Graves easily
He seemed to have suddenly shed his former terse directness. And that he was talking to the famous General O’Malley, chief of Air Service, did not seem to cut any figure with him at all.
“Are we going to make the grade?” repeated the general, his eyes flashing. He hit the desk a resounding blow with his fist. “We’ll sink anything they put up in ten minutes. Fellows like these two you’re going to meet now and the rest of the men who fly those ships out there are going up and show the world ”
A knock on the door interrupted him.
“Come in!” he shouted.
Captain Evans obeyed.
“Broughton and Hinkley are on their way, sir,” he reported.
“Good. Send ’em in as soon as they get here. Now, Graves, let me tell you ” and the general was off on the passion of his life, which was flying in general and his flyers in particular.
Graves deftly inserted the proper question at the proper time, and before long the dynamic general had blueprints and specifications and maps out to strengthen his arguments further
He was in the midst of describing what a two-thousand-pound bomb would do to a battleship, Times Square, a dock, or anything else it hit when Captain Evans entered again.
“Evans, you bother me to death. What the⸺ ”
“Lieutenants Broughton and Hinkley are here, sir,” returned the adjutant, standing at attention. Captain Evans was very correct.
“Oh yes. Send ’em in. From now on, Graves, it’s your funeral. Come in, boys. Mr. Graves, may I present Mr. Broughton and Mr. Hinkley. Sit down. All right, fire away, Graves.”
II.
“You gentlemen are here, upon General O’Malley’s recommendation, in order to let me give you an opportunity to
volunteer for a special mission upon the success of which depends to a considerable extent the lives of many hundred people. Even more important, it has considerable bearing on the future welfare of this country. Least important—in itself, without considering the ramifications resulting from it—it means the capture of a very important and dangerous criminal.”
Graves’ remarkable eyes flitted from one flyer to the other as he studied the effect of his words. Broughton was a thickset, tanned young man possessed of a certain reserve which involuntarily commanded the respect of Graves. He was blond-haired and blueeyed, and his gaze was as steady as it was noncommittal. Tall, lathlike, Hinkley had an air of careless recklessness about him, helped along by the pronouncedly sardonic cast of his face. Like Broughton, he preserved silence.
“With General O’Malley’s permission, I will go over some of the ground I have already covered with him for the benefit of you gentlemen,” Graves went on after a moment.
He proceeded to tell the airmen of Hayden, his importance and the difficulty of capturing him without great publicity and loss of life.
“The only dope we have on the exact layout of his headquarters was obtained through field-glasses by operatives who climbed adjoining mountains and studied the place from all sides. He lives on the very peak of a mountain, without another cabin within miles. But one rough road, winding around the mountain side on a very steep grade, leads to it. For several miles before it reaches the summit of the mountain the cliff drops away sheer from one side of the road, and on the other rises with almost equal steepness. There are so many sheer ravines, and so forth, that it would be almost impossible to get even two hundred men up by any other way than the road; that is, providing they carried machine-guns and other supplies which would be necessary if they stood any chance of capturing Hayden. He has several guards, sufficiently armed, who have every strategic point guarded. Hayden is absolutely without hope, if his presence in this country is known. Capture means for him, and he is almost as sure of it as I am. Being a man of force and brilliancy, although he is crazy, and possessed of a weird magnetism which induces real fanaticism among his followers, the few men up there
will undoubtedly fight for him to the death. My job—in which I would like to have you gentlemen help me—is to capture him without publicity or loss of life.”
“If there’s a chance we may be working for you on this picnic, it might not be discourteous for us to ask who you are?”
It was Hinkley speaking. He was lounging lazily in his chair, one long leg drooping over the other. Graves smiled.
“Here, perhaps, is enough to satisfy you,” he returned, handing Hinkley the document which had been laying on the desk since O’Malley had laid it down.
“I don’t know just who he is myself,” confided O’Malley as Hinkley glanced over the signed note. “But I have a feeling that I’d give a month’s pay to be in on what he is going to do.”
Broughton smiled at his irrepressible chief.
“That remains to be seen, general,” he said gently—the first word he had spoken since entering the office.
“Mysterious, but impressive, Jim,” laughed the irreverent Hinkley as he passed the sheet of paper over to Broughton.
The flyer read it slowly, and handed it back to Graves without comment.
“My scheme is this,” said Graves, leaning back once more and setting the cigar in one corner of his mouth. “That’s wild country—no place to land. The only cleared spot for twenty miles—or in other words near enough to Hayden to suit my needs—is right around his cabin. It is small and rough and on a grade so steep that according to my information it would make a man puff to climb it. I want you gentlemen to fly me over there in a Martin bomber, which I understand is about the safest of ships in a crackup. This ship will be equipped with extra gas and oil tanks to insure large cruising radius. No ship with ordinary gas capacity could safely make the hop, I understand; in any event would not have fuel enough for any reconnaisance.
“In the ship there will also be provisions, machine guns, Colts and plenty of ammunition. I want you gentlemen to fool around with the motor when we are over Hayden’s headquarters, make a supposed forced landing, and endeavor to crack up the ship without hurting
any of us. I will be in the uniform of a colonel. You will also be in full uniform.
“Naturally we will crack up in Hayden’s front yard. It is the only cleared spot, as I said. He will not like our presence, nor will any of his henchman be very enthusiastic. But we’ll be ‘in,’ and it’s a sight easier to get out than it would be to get in.
“What we do from then on is on the knees of the gods, so to speak. Some way or other we must invent a way to get Hayden and get him out of there. It’s a man’s-size job, all right, but we’ve got to figure on a little luck and then taking advantage of it.
“You men are recommended as flyers, and also as men who’ve had some diversified experience. This is not flattery, it is a statement of facts. I expect that you can handle yourselves in any company, and that you’ll be able to come to bat in a pinch when we get up there.
“It’s a hard contract, and you will get nothing out of it except a document in the secret archives of the War Department which may sometimes help you. Now first, what do you think of the plan insofar as it concerns the flying end of things, and secondly, do you want to declare yourselves in on it?”
Graves had been talking as clearly and without excitement as always, and now he waited with equal calmness for a reply. General O’Malley was sunk deep in his swivel-chair, watching the younger men with a half-smile on his face. In his heart was a growing respect for the equable Mr. Graves.
“How much flying have you done, Graves?” he inquired impulsively.
“I made my second flight today, coming down from Washington. What do you say, gentlemen?”
“Can’t get you off the track a minute,” said O’Malley genially. “I’ll subside.”
There was silence for a moment. Hinkley smoked a cigaret, blowing rings at the ceiling with an air of complete indifference. Broughton was gazing steadily at Graves, his scrutiny untroubled by the fact that Graves noticed it. The stocky, slightly stolid-looking pilot was the first to speak.
“A deal of that kind is ticklish business without those in it knowing their helpers a ⸺ sight better than we know each other, sir, but one thing and another about it sort of sells the proposition to me. Count me in, I guess.”
“Suits me,” declared Hinkley. “When do we go?”
“The first minute that the ship is ready. From Washington I got this dope—tell me if I’m wrong. A Martin lasts around five hours in the air if you take a chance and win on the oil staying with you. Fifty extra gallons of gas in each motor, and approximately fifty per cent. more oil than usual, will assure us of seven hours in the air if we need it. It may take time to find our man.”
Broughton nodded.
“When can the extra tanks be installed, general? Major Jenks of the Engineering Division said that it was a comparatively simple job. As I understand it there is plenty of room in a Martin, and of course to any ship that can lift your two thousand pounders the extra weight will be a bagatelle.”
“For a landsman you’re pretty wise,” the general complimented him. “I’ll have the exact estimate in about ten minutes.”
He pressed the bell and instructed Evans to have the engineer officer of the field report at his office immediately. Then the four men plunged into a discussion of guns, food, and other details. Graves had exact figures at his finger tips. Not a detail was brought up which he did not settle as smoothly and quickly as he talked. There was something ruthlessly direct about him—an air of resistless efficiency that was queerly at variance with his appearance, which inclined rather more toward being that of a student than a man of physical achievement.
Mutual respect grew in the minds of the flyers and of Graves. He was no amateur at reading character and estimating men, and he found the airmen to his liking.
The engineer officer, ordered to use every facility at his command to expedite the changing of the Martin, said that on the morning of the second day the ship would be ready for test. At noon it should be ready to go.
“Good,” said Graves. “I guess we’ve covered everything, gentlemen. Hinkley and Broughton will attend to gathering the equipment, general, providing you furnish them proper authority. I will be back about nine a.m., day after tomorrow. I guess there is no need for me to emphasize the need for absolute secrecy—you all realize that. If any of you want to reach me, you can call the Monticello Hotel in Norfolk and ask for Room 220. Don’t ask for Graves.
“Thank you for your help—I’ll see you day after tomorrow. Goodby until then.”
With a smile and slight bow, he left.
“Now I wonder just who in he is?” inquired Hinkley as the two flyers started to walk toward the bachelor quarters.
“Search me, but he’s turning up two thousand a minute, looks like. I figure I might not mind having him behind me in a scrap of any nature whatsoever.”
“He’s probably some big agent of the secret service. There’s a lot of those eggs that pull off big stuff and nobody ever knows it. Take that Zimmerman note, for instance, during the war. At least, that’s what my ex-pilot Dumpy Scarth says.”
“Dumpy ought to know,” grinned Broughton. “What do you think of our coming soirée?”
“If I thought, I’d probably never go!”
III.
“I wish I was back in Texas. This muggy heat makes me sweat like ⸺.”
“Any amount of heat that can wring moisture out of your skin and bones deserves respect, Larry,” returned Broughton, shifting his body a trifle so that he could lie more comfortably.
