Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 1–15 © American Sociological Association 2015 DOI: 10.1177/2332649215569074 sre.sagepub.com Original Research Article INTRODUCTION In recent decades, concern over ethnic continuity has emerged as a critical facet of organizational agendas within many ethnic communities, includ- ing Asian Indian immigrants (Das Dasgupta 1998), Aboriginal communities (Chandler and Lalonde 1998), and Japanese Americans (Morimoto 1997). Buttressed by rising intermarriage rates and declin- ing ethno-religious affiliation, the “continuity cri- sis” has become especially palpable in the North American Jewish community (Sarna 1994). To address concerns about Jewish group survival, an array of communal strategies has been developed to enhance Jewish identification and bolster com- mitment to Jewish life, with overnight Jewish summer camps among the most ubiquitous (Sales and Saxe 2004). In a history of the summer camp movement, Paris (2008:86) notes that by the 1920s, “[Jews] were among the industry’s most enthusiastic sup- porters, at the epicenter of the summer camp mar- ketplace.” This enthusiasm stemmed from camps’ efforts to acculturate second-generation Jewish 569074SRE XX X 10.1177/2332649215569074Sociology of Race and EthnicityHarold research-article 2015 1 University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada Corresponding Author: Joshua Harold, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, 725 Spadina Ave, Toronto, ON, M5S2J4, Canada. Email: josh.harold@mail.utoronto.ca Institutionalizing Liminality: Jewish Summer Camps and the Boundary Work of Camp Participants Joshua Harold 1 Abstract This article examines ethnic boundary formation by analyzing how former participants in a liminal organization mobilize organizational schemas of identity and practice. I envisage Jewish summer camps as liminal organizations that provide an undifferentiated setup for immersive ethnic engagement within a clearly defined temporal period. I posit that the liminality of camp helps participants overlook the complexities of identity by transmitting organizational schemas without the constraint of structural pressures. I argue the concept of liminality makes visible structural pressures that stimulate deliberate cognition over organizational schemas. Using qualitative interviews with former camp participants, this article attends to the cognitive boundary work that underlies organizational participation. It contributes to understandings of how identity practices are shaped by institutional discourses and extends ethnic boundary theory to include liminal organizational types. I show that the structure of camp activities organizes liminality into three predominant schemas. I then show how, in the context of structural shifting, campers mobilize these schemas as salient ethnic boundaries. The results demonstrate that structural pressures encourage deliberate cognition over organizational schemas, thereby complicating projects of boundary work that structure groupness. Keywords collective identity, ethnicity, group dynamics, Jews, boundaries, summer camps by guest on February 28, 2015 sre.sagepub.com Downloaded from