Advantages And Disadvantages Of Marginality

MARGINALITY AS A TERM WITH MULTI-DISCIPLINARY ROOTS
Fairly comparable to “exclusion”, “marginality” is also an awkward term which has been used in manifold and varied ways. Although it is frequently applied in the field of urban studies, it has a rather “fuzzy” history and, as a consequence, it has even been argued that the term lacks specificity and precision and this makes its use as a scientific tool questionable (Dunne 2005, Billson 2005). Since that time the use of the term “marginality” has flourished and the concept has been broadened and diffused (Billson 2005: 33). Billson has suggested, that marginality has actually been applied in sociology in three different kinds of ways: a) as cultural marginality, referring to the dilemmas of cross-cultural identities and assimilation, b) as social role marginality, describing the tensions which occur when an individual is restricted from belonging to a positive reference group, c) as structural marginality, referring to political, social and economic powerlessness and disadvantage. It is especially the latter strand of research which has gained most attention in the last decades, and here concepts of power and oppression are regularly fused with more “culturalist” ideas of “outsidedness” to create a generally accepted contemporary definition of “marginality” as the lack of power, participation and integration

• They have physical and/or cultural traits that set them apart, and which are disapproved of, by a dominant group.
• They share a sense of collective identity and common burdens.
• They have shared social rules about who belongs, and who does not.
• They have a tendency to marry within the group.
Thus, marginalization is a complex as well as shifting phenomenon linked to social