Introduction to Social Climbing and Liminality
Thanks to a convergence of factors such as genetic predispositions, a stubborn character, a stable social network, access to resources, and a fair amount of luck, I have moved across different layers of our society. I am aware of the sensitivities surrounding social mobility, and I write about this carefully and with good intentions.
Recently, I encountered the concept of liminality. Not exactly dinner table vocabulary, but an experience that felt immediately familiar. It refers to an in between state in which you no longer fully belong to where you came from, yet you are not entirely absorbed into where you have arrived.
Climbing the Ladder
My most concrete example of social mobility is my educational trajectory. Without passing judgment, but within the hierarchical structure of the Dutch education system, I began in pre vocational secondary education, a practically oriented track typically preparing students for skilled trades and mid level applied training. From there I moved to senior secondary vocational education in marketing communications, which focuses on applied professional skills. I then progressed to a university of applied sciences to study communication at bachelor level, which emphasizes professional practice over academic research. After working as a communications officer and advisor and becoming co owner of a company, I eventually changed course and pursued a research university master’s degree in Sociology. I now find myself in a new professional phase.
Living between two worlds
But climbing is not only about diplomas or income. Along the way, you learn to speak differently, to reason differently, to observe differently. You adopt new frameworks, norms, values, and habits of thought, while the old ones never completely disappear. For a long time, I presented myself as someone who understood and could connect different layers of society, as a bridge builder who simplified complexity and nuanced certainty.
Increasingly, however, I notice that I feel less connected to where I came from, yet not fully at home in where I now stand. In order to climb, I have, largely unconsciously, been sawing at the legs of who I am, who I thought I was, and who I might become within our society. None of those three positions feel self evident anymore. That raises difficult questions. How do I relate to the people around me, and how do they relate to me?
Asymmetry and Cost of Growth
In my experience, social mobility is not linear. While diplomas and income tend to grow in relatively measurable ways alongside achievement, relationships, identity, and emotions do not. What begins as motivation for self development can evolve into estrangement from one’s own thinking. And that new way of thinking is not received equally everywhere. This in between position seems essential to the journey, but it is not always comfortable.
I share this not as a conclusion, but as a personal observation. The in between space that social mobility can produce still feels searching and unsettled.
Do you recognize this experience? Or has your journey unfolded very differently? Contact
