Symbolic boundaries are a theory of how people form social groups proposed by cultural sociologists.
[3] Mary Douglas has subsequently emphasised the role of symbolic boundaries in organising experience, private and public, even in a secular society;[4] while other neo-Durkheimians highlight the role of deviancy as one of revealing and making plain the symbolic boundaries that uphold moral order, and of providing an opportunity for their communal reinforcement.
[5] As Durkheim himself put it, "Crime brings together upright consciences and concentrates them...to talk of the event and wax indignant in common",[6] thereby reaffirming the collective barriers that have been breached.
)[8] Salman Rushdie has emphasised the role of the migrant as a postmodern representative, transgressing symbolic boundaries, and (potentially at least) demonised by their upholders in the host nation as a result.
[9] Marjorie Garber has explored the role of the transvestite in crossing the symbolic boundaries of gender - something which she considered tended to challenge those of race as well.