LIMINAL METAPHORS AND BOUNDARY WORK IN HIGHER EDUCATION. CULTURAL STUDIESAND THE MEANING OF BOUNDARIES. Boundaries and boundary crossing areimportant dimensions of contemporary science. Perhaps more than inany other area of study, these dimensions play a role in the field of culturalstudies. Being a fairly young and still developing field, cultural studies wasfounded on and to some extent still retain a spirit, at least rhetorically, ofresistance, rebellion and political engagement. Needless to say, any fieldthat aspires to a status within the world of academe has to accommodateto some of its conventions and expectations. In this article, the field ofcultural studies is the example put forward in an analysis of the meta-phors of liminality that are used within it. Three different proponents ofcultural studies are identified which roughly equate with a developmentwithin the field: political engagement rather than academic discipline;discursive formations; and communication central.