From kurtas to crop tops: A theory of postliminal self‐transformation
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract This research theorizes postliminal self‐transformation , the process by which consumers adapt to new status positions following major life transitions. Prior consumer research emphasizes liminality—the “betwixt and between” ambiguous phase— but overlooks what happens after liminality as individuals attempt to fit in. Drawing on qualitative data regarding young Indian women migrants to metropolitan corporate contexts, we reveal that transformation does not end with liminality but unfolds through a reflexive and effortful postliminal process. Women strategically use consumption—particularly of clothing and accessories—to bridge self‐discrepancies, mitigate exclusion, and gradually internalize their new professional identities. This stagewise progression moves from observation and mimicry to embodied transformation and identity mastery, often under constraints of patriarchy, class, and gender expectations. Contrasting with traditional (Western) models of adulthood that emphasize settling down, the women's postliminal adaptation is emancipatory and nonlinear, updating scripts for marking adulthood. By theorizing this postliminal adaptation, we challenge assumptions of instantaneous reincorporation, extending understanding of identity work. Our framework advances consumer psychology by showing how consumption facilitates ongoing self‐reconstruction in dynamic and inequitable social hierarchies.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.021 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.007 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.007 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".