Chapter 14
Marginalization
Chapter Aims
The goals of this chapter are for you to: (a) understand the nature of
social marginalization, (b)
to consider values that contribute to marginalization, (c) to consider
values that can counter marginalization, (d) to establish the relevance of
critical community psychology praxis for working against marginalization, (e)
to propose analytic and practical tools for working against marginalization,
and (f) to reflect on some potential problems community psychologists face when
trying to work against marginalization.
Marginality is an experience affecting millions of people throughout the world. Though various aspects of it will be considered in subsequent chapters, here we offer an introduction to the theme. Being poor, unemployed, discriminated, or disabled in an ableist society are serious risk factors. Being excluded from economic, social and political life can have adverse effects on individuals and communities alike. This chapter focuses on social marginalization to see how community psychologists can understand it and challenge it at the same time.
Marginalization is strangely ignored in the psychological literature. In preparation for writing this chapter we carried out a search of the psycINFO database for the period from 1876 until the present day, using both “marginalization” and “marginalisation.” We found 52 items that included the term in the title - of these, only 17 actually dealt with the experience of social marginalization by people in positions of oppression, exclusion, vulnerability or discrimination: the others dealt with things as diverse as a statistical technique or the marginalization of certain professional groups or practices. Curiously, there was no entry at all from before 1982. Over 55,000 references are currently added to the database each year, so in the year 2000, for instance, there were two out of 55,000 or 0.0036 per cent of relevant references. Although there will be many more texts that deal with the question (but do not mention it in the title), this still looks like a remarkable neglect by the established field of psychology.
Community psychology, in contrast, does have a history of dealing with marginalized people. People with mental health difficulties, and the services developed to support them, have been at the heart of the discipline since its inception (Levine & Perkins, 1997; Orford, 1992). Over time, attention has widened to other marginalized groups (Speer, Dey, Griggs, & Gibson, 1992). For example, there has been considerable and varied community psychological work on homelessness, a highly marginalized population (Shinn, 2000).
WHAT IS SOCIAL MARGINALIZATION?
Marginalization is a slippery and multi-layered concept. Whole societies can be marginalized at the global level while classes and communities can be marginalized from the dominant social order. Similarly, ethnic groups, families or individuals can be marginalized within localities. To a certain extent, marginalization is a shifting phenomenon, linked to social status. Individuals or groups might enjoy high social status at one point in time, but as social changes take place, they lose this status and become marginalized. Similarly, as people cycle through life stages they move in and out of marginal positions.
Let us consider the position of many civic organisations in South Africa under apartheid. Although excluded from the mainstream, these groups held important positions in the fight against apartheid. Post apartheid, their status changed. People prominent in resistance organisations, and indeed some of the organisations themselves, were incorporated into Government. In contrast, at the local level, those young men who had high status as “freedom fighters” almost overnight became virtual outcasts as their reliance on violence had no place in the rhetoric of the new South Africa (see Noyoo, 2000). These are examples of shifts in marginalization that occur alongside social and political change. A different type of example would be found in communities, or sectors of communities, in which social and economic changes propel people into marginality.
Charlesworth (2000) wrote a moving phenomenological account of working class life in a former steel-manufacturing town in England. In discussing the ways in which people’s social position affects their identities and even their appearance, Charlesworth says that
“It is the economic changes and the social conditions they ushered in that have consigned these people to a life of marginality which, naturally enough, manifests itself in their comportment, manner and style.” (p. 160)
One of the local people in his book
describes the hopelessness that such marginalization engenders:
“Ah get up some times an' it's just too much fo' mi, yer know, it creeps over yer, it just gets too much an' tha can't tek no mo'ore […] It's heart breakin', it's just a strain all time an' tha just wants t' not live, tha just can't see n' point in thi' life…” (p. 160)
At certain stages of the life cycle
the risk of marginalization increases or decreases. For example, the
marginalized status of children and youth may decrease as they get older; the
marginalized status of adults may increase as they become elders; the
marginalized status of single mothers may change as their children grow up, and
so on. Even so, there are different risks within particular social groups at
risk of marginalization. Eldering and Knorth (1998), for example, demonstrate
that the risks of marginalization of immigrant youth in Europe vary with
ethnicity, irrespective of the particular host countries, or of degree of
acculturation. Kagan and Scott-Roberts
(2002), working with NGOs supporting families in the slums of Kolkata,
illustrate how having a disabled child further marginalizes them. Similarly,
Wenzel, Keogel and Gelberg (2000) draw our attention to the different risks
faced by homeless women compared to homeless men. Taywaditep (2001), in turn,
discusses forms of marginalization amongst gay men.
In his unjustly neglected book, Personality and Ideology, Peter Leonard (1984, p.180) defines social marginality as “being outside the mainstream of productive activity and/or social reproductive activity.” This includes two groups, firstly a relatively small group of people who are voluntarily marginal to the social order - new age travellers, certain religious sects, commune members, some artists, for instance. Here, however, we are concerned with a second group: those who are involuntarily socially marginal. Leonard (1984) characterises these people as remaining outside “the major arena of capitalist productive and reproductive activity,” and as such as experiencing “involuntary social marginality” (p. 181).
The experience of marginality can arise in a number of ways. For some
people, those severely impaired from birth, or those born into excluded groups
(e.g., members of ethnic groups that suffer discrimination - the Roma in
Europe, Indigenous people in Australasia and the American continent, African
Caribbean people in Britain), this marginality is typically life-long and
profound.
For others, marginality is acquired by later
disablement or by changes in the social and economic system. The collapse of
the Soviet Union plunged millions into unemployment. In Manchester, our own
city, neoliberal economic policies closed down the traditional industrial base
and led to unemployment and various patterns of insecure and casual employment
for many. As global capitalism extends its reach, bringing more and more people
into its system, more communities are dispossessed of lands, livelihoods, and
systems of social support (Chomsky, 2000; Petras & Veltmeyer, 2001; Pilger,
2002; Potter, 2000). Indeed, we argue that capitalist development in its current
globalising phase inexorably creates increasing levels of marginalization
throughout the world, particularly as collective safeguards, from indigenous
cultures to trades unions and government welfare programmes are attacked.
Marginalization
is at the core of exclusion from fulfilling and full social lives at
individual, interpersonal and societal levels (see Chapter 2). People who are
marginalized have relatively little control over their lives and have few
resources available to them; they become stigmatised and are often at the
receiving end of negative public attitudes. Their opportunities to make social
contributions may be limited and they may develop low self-confidence and self
esteem. If they do not have work and live with support services, for example,
they may have limited opportunities for meeting with others. A vicious circle
is set up whereby their lack of positive and supportive relationships means
they are prevented from participating in local life, which in turn leads to
further isolation. Limiting social policies and practices restrict access to
valued social resources such as education, health services, housing, income,
leisure activities and work (see Chapter 8).
Although different people will react variably to marginalizing processes, some common social psychological pathways can be identified. We pay particular attention to processes that facilitate or prevent collective social action (see Burton & Kagan, 1996).
People who are experiencing marginalization are likely to have tenuous involvement in the economy. The sources of their income vary. Some are waged while others depend on state benefits, marginal economic activity such as casual work, or charity (see for example, Sixsmith, 1999). It is not unusual for people to combine, or move between, these various ways of getting money in their struggle for survival. Poverty, dependency, and feelings of shame are everyday aspects of economic dislocation and social marginalization.
[Insert Box 13.1 about here]
A further problem is the relative or complete exclusion of marginalized people from social networks. People born into marginality will be able, at best, to access resources through strong social networks (for example a person born with impairments into a rich family). Others will be able to access weaker networks, such as neighbourhood or church-based organisations. But often these sources of support will be weak or overburdened. In some poor communities where unemployment is the norm, and social problems are rife, tenants association have retreated to a minimal role of working just in the interests of those on the committee (see for example, Kagan, Lawthom, Knowles, & Burton, 2001). Isolated from the world of work, strong associations like trades unions are not available to economically marginalized people.
People who have become disabled, and those with a severely disabled child, often report rejection and isolation from their former friends and allies. Marginalisation then means reduced opportunity to link with others in common action to solve problems. The result can be described as disempowerment.
[Insert Box 13.2 about here]
IDEOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF MARGINALIZATION
The above dimensions of marginalisation, poverty/economic dislocation and disempowerment/social dislocation, can be regarded as primary material insults. But being a member of a marginalised group also brings the risk of psychosocial-ideological threats. The first of these is the definition of one’s identity by others: the ideological definition of one’s marginalised identity in the interest of dominant groups. What typically seems to happen is that the situation of the marginalised persons is portrayed as a result of their own characteristics. What is essentially a social and historical phenomenon is presented as a biological or an intrapsychic event.
[Insert Figure 13.1 about here]
The problems that people face are then seen as “their own making,” or at least as inseparable from their particular nature. The phenomenon is naturalised, seen not as a socially determined reality, but as something to be expected given the way the person is. This phenomenon has been called “blaming the victim” (Ryan, 1976), which is part of a more general “culture of blame” (Farber & Azar, 1999). Examples of this will be encountered in the following chapters.
Psychology has often colluded with ideologies that blame the victim by offering endogenous causes of the situation in which oppressed people find themselves. These causes have reflected the scientific and psychological theory of the time, from MacDougall’s use of instinct at the turn of the last century, through drives and personality traits, to the maladaptive cognitive structures that today’s cognitive theorists claim to detect. The latter have some justification because oppressed people do internalize aspects of the existing social reality and its ideological “story” (see Chapters 16, 17, and 19 for examples of this phenomenon).
Some psychological writers have offered analyses of what goes on in processes of internalization (e.g., Fanon, 1986; Martín-Baró, 1996a). Martín-Baró studied the phenomenon of fatalism in Latin-American societies. Psychological explanations had hitherto considered this in terms of the character of the people concerned. It had been suggested that these personality characteristics develop in a specific cultural context, for example a “culture of poverty” in which destitution leads to cultural patterns that are passed on from generation to generation.
Martín-Baró suggests other explanations. The first of these is fatalism’s “truth.” The impossibility of social change -- poverty, debt, failed social movements -- leads to an internalisation of external reality. As a result, we see a correlation between the societal context and psychological structures. The oppressed classes assume that their destiny is out of their control. The structure condemns to failure whatever members of the poor classes do to “get ahead.”
Secondly, he looks at fatalism as the internalisation of social domination. Martín-Baró follows Fanon, who suggested that violence imposed by the coloniser is introjected, turned inward, by the colonized -- it remains anchored in their bodies as repressed tension, and in their minds as perennial guilt. Similarly for Freire (1974, 1994), the oppressed are immersed in a condition in which they are robbed and rendered helpless. Unable to get to the source of their condition, they take refuge in a fatalistic attitude, transforming history into nature. Impotence becomes proof of their worthlessness. The oppressor becomes an irresistible model for the oppressed, with whom they identify, and whose orders they follow.
Finally, Martín-Baró identifies the ideological nature of fatalism. Fatalism saves the oppressor from having to exert coercive control; it induces a docile reaction to the demands of those who wield power. In keeping with fatalism, historical forces are rendered mythical, so they seem to resemble nature, or God.
A further
result of victim-blaming ideologies, imposed but assimilated, is the definition
of one's reality by 'experts'. This is most obvious in the case of disabled
people and those with mental health difficulties, where personal experiences
become a set of pathologies with technical names and technological treatments.
Despite all the negative impositions of ideology, the situation of oppressed people is also characterised by resistance and resilience. In resilience there is the potential for an enhanced, reclaimed and re-invented identity. The very fact of being oppressed, of having fundamental rights denied or diminished, elicits attempts to remediate the situation. This can be negative and destructive, as in the vandalism and petty crime of disaffected youth in our cities, or in the pathologies of self-destruction, addiction, and depression. However, attempts at remediation can also be highly positive, as in collective action to improve social conditions. Potential or actual resilience and resistance can be key resources in community psychology praxis.
As people are affected by social forces and changing social relations, and as they organise to resist oppression and reclaim what is truly theirs, they experience changes in identification and affiliation. A person who becomes unemployed is likely to lose both the social context and network of work, and to begin seeing herself in other terms - not defined by her working life any more. This is likely to involve a struggle, often lost, to retain a positive self-concept and not be defeated by feelings of worthlessness and superfluity (Charlesworth, 2000; Leonard, 1984; see also Chapter 15). Similarly, when people in the UK have to move house due to their age (Churchill, Everitt & Greene, 1997) or due to housing policies, there are marked changes in how they feel about themselves and about the social contributions they can make.
People who engage in collective action describe how their sense of belonging and personal worth change for the better (e.g., Kagan, Lawthom, Knowles & Burton, 2001; McCulloch, 1997; Menchú, 1984; Stewart, 2000). It is important for community psychologists to understand these processes if they are to be helpful in supporting community based movements for change.
It is worth focussing briefly on why marginalization is actually a problem. There is something fundamental here to the very meaning of being human. It is commonplace to find the assumption that the self precedes society, and therefore that society is made up, in a cumulative way, from individuals (or in former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s words: “There is no such thing as society, only individuals”). An alternative view can be found in the work of Karl Marx (see Sève, 1975) and G. H. Mead (1934). Both derived “human essence” (Marx) or the “self” (Mead) from the “ensemble of social relations” (Marx) or the “organized pattern of social relations and interactions” (Mead). In other words we become who we are through relationships. For people who are severely and involuntarily marginalised, their selfhood, their humanity, is threatened.
Reflecting what Thekaekara and Thekaekara (1995) found on peripheral estates of Britain, Charlesworth (2000, p. 60) puts it thus:
“… no matter what one has done occupationally …[once marginalized] … there is no way one can escape the experience of a social context that is like a stagnant pond in which we are the suffocating organisms. There is an absence of the social conditions that make optimism and hope a realistic life strategy.” (Charlesworth, 2000, p. 60)
It is therefore unethical to do nothing about social
marginalization: it is a major human
problem, undermining the essence of humanity.
Based on multiple sources of evidence, Doyal and Gough (1984, 1991) argue that there are two fundamental human needs: physical health, and autonomy. Autonomy is further divided into two levels, autonomy of agency, the ability to initiate actions; and critical autonomy, the opportunity for participation in political processes. People who are involuntarily marginalized, then, would have to be seen as having their fundamental needs compromised. Doyal and Gough go on to suggest that the human needs of health and autonomy can be achieved through a process of learning: learning as a social process, involving people interacting in social groups. Learning from history, learning between groups within a society or across cultures, are all very important. In fact, they argue that the ability to translate lessons into practice is what they call “human liberation” (Doyal & Gough, 1984 p. 22).
[Insert Box 13.3 about here]
Dussel (1998; see also Alcoff & Mendieta, 2000), a Latin-American philosopher of liberation, offers a critique of the conditions caused by the dominant geopolitical system from the perspective of the “oppressed other,” the victims of the system. He articulates a practical approach to ethics in a world where the majority are excluded from the possibility of producing, reproducing and developing their lives. He affirms the principle of liberation - the positive critical duty for us to work for liberation, whether that is through feasible reform of aspects of the system or feasible transformation of the system itself.
What Dussel and Doyal and Gough have in common is the view that human life is inseparable from the ability to enter into, and critically negotiate, social relations. For marginalised persons, groups and communities, the inability to meet these expectations has negative repercussions for their biological and psychological well-being.
Community psychology should be particularly well placed to help people respond to the challenge of their marginalization in constructive ways. Its refusal to restrict itself to the individual level, and to attribute social problems to internal pathologies, as seen in Chapter 2, is a first step. By taking a transactional view that positions the personal, relational and societal planes as interrelated, interdependent, and of similar importance, a critical community psychology can attend to the various problems at the same time (see Chapter 3).
Let us take
as an example some of the work we have undertaken, along with others, with
people with learning difficulties, their families and services in the North
West of England (Burton & Kagan, 1995; Kagan, 1997). As psychologists we
might have limited our activities to working with individuals, so as to enhance
their skills and capacities. As social workers, we might have limited our
activities to ensuring disabled people and their families got full access to
their welfare entitlements. As health workers, we might have limited ourselves
to improving the health status of individual people.
As community psychologists, though,
we extended our work to: (a) regional and national policy development, (b)
facilitation of interagency work, (c) training of professionals and education
of disabled people and their families, (d) facilitation of self-help groups,
(e) identification of service gaps and abuses, (f) exposure of unequal access
to social institutions, and (g) facilitation of both organisational change and
community development in order to be inclusive of disabled people and their
families. This work led to increased capability and self-determination for
disabled people and their families (personal well-being); less isolation and
more community connection for disabled people and their families (relational
well being); wider social changes stimulated by and informed by the experiences
of disabled people and their families (collective well being) (see also Chapter
20). As this is a process of countering marginalization, the work continues.
It is one thing to assert that a critical community psychology can help, but a more difficult matter to do so. There are constant dangers of reinforcing marginalisation or unwittingly colluding with the forces that create it.
[Insert Box 13.4 about here]
But if there are dangers of co-optation and tokenism, as seen in Box 13.4, there are also some powerful models for effective work. Although much of this comes from outside the field of psychology, psychological concepts and principles can be employed to strengthen and develop such approaches.
What could be called the Latin-American model of liberatory praxis summarises a vast body of work by educators, community workers, social movements, and community psychologists. This is work done with, and in the service of, oppressed groups in that region (see for example, Montero, 1994, 1998; Quintal de Freitas, 2000; Sánchez. & Wiesenfeld, 1991). Particularly through the work of Freire (1974, 1994; Freire & Faundez, 1989) and Fals Borda (1988), this approach has been applied in countries of the South and in work with marginalised groups in core capitalist countries (e.g., Atweh, Kemmis & Weeks, 1998; Kane, 2001).
A key theme in liberation thought is that liberation is not a thing, nor can it be located in a moment in time. It is not something to be given, but rather it is a movement and a series of processes. It has origins in the interaction of two types of agents or activists: (a) external catalytic agents (which may include community psychologists), and (b) the oppressed groups themselves.
The Latin American notion of liberation proposes a strategic alliance between these two sectors. As seen in Chapter 8, a central idea is Freire’s concept of conscientization. Martín-Baró (1996b) identifies three aspects of it:
1. The human being is transformed through changing his/her reality, through an active process of dialogue.
2. In this process there is a gradual decoding of the world, as people grasp the mechanisms of oppression and dehumanisation. This opens up new possibilities for action.
3. The new knowledge of the surrounding reality leads to new self-understanding. Such learning is about the roots of what people are at present and what they can become in the future.
Freire is careful not to provide blueprints for this process, as every situation is different. However, two examples from British community psychologists working with people with mental health difficulties give some flavour of these ways of working.
Holland (1988, 1991, 1992) and Melluish and Bulmer (1999) worked with groups of women and men, respectively, in deprived urban communities. In both cases they started with people referred for psychological help, and used group-work methods to build confidence and understanding. With the support of community psychologists, both groups were able to move beyond a focus on personal problems and individual explanations to a community action perspective.
The project by Melluish and Bulmer took account of working class experience by emphasising the role of the group rather than the individual, social instead of internal causes of distress, and the role of action rather than introspection. The group focused on how to overcome feelings of resignation and passivity, and how to start making changes at the community level. Personal commitment to the prevention of distress and suicide were also important. Their group became organisationally and economically self sufficient without the input of the workers.
It would be a mistake to see these interventions as relating only to people with mental health difficulties. Community psychology is concerned with well-being more generally and with working with people who are marginalised in different ways.
The three aspects of liberation identified by Martín-Baró could be seen in some work that we did, by invitation, with some residents living on a run-down City housing estate, which was, somewhat unusually, placed in the prosperous countryside. Some women on the estate had begun to talk about how things could be made better for residents on the estate in the face of disinterested and negligent councils. They heard of the community psychologists through an unrelated article in the local paper and invited us to talk things through with them. Our initial brief had been no more than to show interest, discuss what was going on with the local women, give ideas and links to other projects, and to use residents’ experiences to spread understanding of what living in poverty was like in Britain. The very involvement of the University gave self-proclaimed strength to the women and helped them gain media interest in life and changes on the estate.
Through this dialogue, the women began to see how their lives were linked to political priorities within both the local councils and the Government and to see that their scope for change was going to be limited. They also began to see how it would be necessary to broaden the base of interest and action on the estate. They chose two forms of action. The first was to clear rubbish from the centre of the estate. The second was to find out what residents thought about their housing. The rubbish clearing was met with suspicion at first, but as they persisted some others, including children, joined them. People would stop and talk and begin to open up:
“People have started to ‘come out’ (to
members of our women’s group) with regard to ‘nuisance neighbours’, domestic
violence, homelessness and many other issues. But seem powerless to take the
smallest action on their own behalf, but it’s a start.”
In relation to the housing, the women carried out a door-to door survey. Carrying out the survey meant they had to work together and to appreciate each other’s strengths. More people joined in the activity, and more and more people began to share information on the doorstep.
“I’m still delivering [information] and
Heather now has 2 women who come round with her surveying. Meg (age 78) is
there for moral support and her daughter Kate…...the survey is shocking and every day we hear more abuse stories. This
week an elderly woman was afraid to ask for repairs…. Families such as
one where the father had seriously abused daughters then committed suicide are
‘coming out,’ no cure whatsoever for the girls (now women) and rage and anger
acted out daily - their own children being first in line. So many broken
people. The light on the situation yesterday was that people came out asking
for information.”
By this time there was a considerable group of residents becoming active and seeing possibilities for change in other directions. Over a period of about 6 months, they formed a residents’ association that developed and steered a number of other community projects. They had a complex understanding of the constraints imposed upon their lives as well as of their own capabilities. Whilst the situation appeared optimistic, the residents were limited in what they could achieve and were thwarted at every turn by officialdom (see Kagan, Lawthom, Knowles & Burton 2001 for a fuller account). Nevertheless, people on the estate have become more involved, active, and have a stronger understanding of how they might improve things for themselves.
In the UK there is a major policy initiative that has the potential to reduce social marginalization. In 1997 the Government established the Social Exclusion Unit. Social exclusion is considered to be:
“a shorthand term for what can happen when people or areas suffer from a combination of linked problems such as unemployment, poor skills, low incomes, poor housing, high crime environments, bad health and family breakdown …. It includes low income, but is broader and focuses on the link between problems such as, for example, unemployment, poor skills, high crime, poor housing and family breakdown. Only when these links are properly understood and addressed will policies really be effective.” (SEU, 2001c, Chapter 1)
The Unit identified the costs associated with social exclusion. Human costs faced by individuals who experience social exclusion include underachievement in education and the labour market, low income, poor access to services, stress, and ill-health. Social costs include reduced social cohesion, higher crime and higher levels of stress and reduced mobility. The social costs also include the financial burden of paying for crime, school exclusions, drug misuse, unemployment, and lost tax revenue. Business suffered too from a less skilled workforce, lost customers and markets, and - like the rest of the population – higher taxes to pay the bills for social failure.
The social exclusion unit targeted a number of priority areas, including truancy and school exclusion, rough sleeping (homeless people sleeping on the streets), neighbourhood renewal, teenage pregnancy and young people leaving school. Each priority area has a platform of consultations (what is hailed as “bottom-up” policy making) and action plans. The neighbourhood renewal programme consists of nearly 600 recommendations for actions that are publicly audited (SEU 2001b).
Paid work and access to the labour market dominates UK Government policy (Levitas, 1998; Williams, 2002). Even so, one of the current projects of the Social Exclusion Unit is concerned with transport - thus broadening both the understanding of exclusion and its remedies (SEU, 2002).
Although these policies look promising, commentators have been concerned with the ways in which causes of exclusion are frequently seen to be located within individuals and their personal deficits (Colley & Hodkinson, 2001), thus rendering deep-seated structural inequalities invisible. It is a rights and responsibilities approach that focuses on individuals doing things differently, to fit with existing social structures, not necessarily an approach focusing on social change.
Much was made of the consultative, “bottom up” approach of the Social Exclusion Unit (Matthews, 2001; Morris, 2001). Similarly, much was made of the move to “joined up Government” underpinned by the Social Exclusion Unit. However, we can still see the ways in which different Government policies pull against each other in housing (Lemos, 2000; Shelter, 2002), and neighbourhood renewal (Home Office, 2002; LGA, 2002; Social Exclusion Unit, 2001a). Problems have also been identified with the marginalization of groups from the process and with contradictory policies. Still, the identification of social exclusion as a government priority opens possibilities for more community psychological work.
Community and government work should involve an alliance between the community psychologist and people at risk of marginalisation. The professional contributes some general templates and understandings, some organisational know-how, and some access to resources. Community members, in turn, bring their own commitment, their local knowledge, and their lived experience. From the combination of these resources, action for social justice, supported by emancipatory research can emerge. Ideas from psychology and related fields can create a synergy with local knowledge to bring about liberatory change (Burton & Kagan, 2000; Choudhury & Kagan, 2000; Kagan, 1995; Mollison, 1988).
One of the challenges to community psychology is, to use a well-known proverb, to “think global and act local.” Our analyses of marginalization must take account of the wider global picture, and our actions must transcend national boundaries as well. Local compassion has to be accompanied by global solidarity.
As community psychologists we can work together to help evaluate what works best, what are the barriers to change, and what action projects are all about (see Kagan & Burton, 2000). We would argue that to work at the margins of psychology, with one foot in and one foot out of the discipline, in partnership with those who are marginalized, demands particular ways of being. This work requires us to make personal commitments to social justice, not just in our work, but in our lives as well.
Resources
Websites
1. Our Community Psychology UK website: http://www.compsy.org.uk has links to a variety of resources relevant to marginalisation, as well as to some of our other work in community psychology, and related areas.
2. Information on the Latin American model of liberatory praxis can be found in several places: http://www.oneworld.org/cantera/education/index.html - an English language website based in Managua, explains the Freirian model of popular education, while for those who read Spanish, the following site is that of a Latin America - wide network of popular education centres: http://www.ceaal.org/
3. The Instituto Paulo Freire in Brazil has some pages in English: http://www.paulofreire.org/
4. Finally the Brazilian Landless Workers' Movement, the MST has a good site in English and Portuguese, covering the MST's history, its settlements, and its educational programme: http://www.mstbrazil.org/index.html
5. The site for the World Social Forum, held annually in Porto Alegre, Brazil contains links, articles and information on this innovative approach that advocates and works towards a different globalisation that includes the marginalised: http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/home.asp
6. More information on the British Government Social Exclusion Unit, including reports that can be freely downloaded can be found at their site: http://www.cabinet-office.gov.uk/seu/
7. New Internationalist magazine provides an international perspective on exploitation, diversity and discrimination, human rights, the abuse of power, and alternatives: http://www.newint.org
1. The films of Ken Loach, for example, Bread and Roses, Cathy Come Home, Kes, Raining Stones, Navigators, Sweet 16, all deal with issues of marginalisation and people's resilience and resistance to it.
2. Similarly the films, journalism and books of John Pilger give a great deal of material of relevance to worldwide struggles of and for the marginalised. See http://www.johnpilger.com/
Commentary
Lesley Hoatson
I trained in Australia as
a social worker and community developer and for many years have been an
activist in low-income neighbourhoods. Nowadays I teach at a University in the
poorest part of Melbourne. In all my work settings I struggle with how to be
most effective when working along side marginalized people. Early on I realised
that to intervene and make a difference I needed an analysis of why the world
was so unfair and how oppression was consciously and unconsciously used to keep
people marginalized. Mark Burton and Carolyn Kagan’s chapter begins to provide
just such an analysis. Recognising that marginalization is complex, they build
a powerful understanding of how people become marginalized, its impact, how it
is perpetuated and strategies that community practitioners might use to
challenge it. I wish though that they had discussed in more detail why society
tolerates and, some would argue, actively encourages the marginalisation of
classes and communities. I notice that the most powerful in society
substantially benefit from keeping people marginalized. In my region, for
example, large numbers of people are either employed on very low wages or they
cannot find work. This environment profits employers because they have a ready
pool of cheap labour, with workers competing to take whatever job is available.
The fight for wage justice is sidelined in the knowledge that rocking the boat
will only make you less attractive to employers, who after all have plenty of
other people they can employ. It is in the interests of the powerful to impose
on the less powerful so that they quietly accept their unfair place in society.
The authors
identify that the experience of marginality can arise through being born into a
marginalized group or acquiring marginality through some personal or structural
mishap. Their diagram (Figure 13.1) introduces the idea of dimensions of
marginality through gender, race, disability, poverty or knowledge, occurring
from the individual through to structural levels. Unfortunately they do not
expand much on these concepts. Some writers such as Mullaly (2002) identify
marginalisation as one form of a broader category of oppression. He argues that
individuals have multiple identities associated with class, social roles,
ethnicity, gender. The dominant group uses these socially constructed different
identities as the bases for carrying out discrimination against less powerful
members. Often psychologists and social workers treat these forms of oppression
as a number of single sources when they should be seen as multiple,
intersecting oppressions, which are both complex and potentially volatile. For
example, Mullaly suggests that oppression based on patriarchy will not be
experienced the same by all women, as it will be mediated in some way by a
woman’s class position, race, sexuality, level of disability and so on.
Multiple oppressions are not just cumulative; the interactive effects of many
forms of oppression increase exponentially as other forms of oppression are
added.
He also points out that oppression not only occurs between the dominant and less powerful group, it also occurs within oppressed groups. Every so-called identity group (for example men, women, gay, lesbian, bisexual, heterosexual, disabled) contains a hierarchy of privilege and advantage that can lead people to hold on to relative advantages and support the status quo. This makes it much harder to build solidarity between and within marginalized groups.
Burton and Kagan comment on two other factors that prevent collective action. Marginalized people are likely to have tenuous involvement in the economy, with varying sources of income that make it a struggle to survive. They also see that marginality excludes people, either relatively or completely from social networks. I would argue that while some marginalized individuals do have few networks, it is not necessarily exclusion from networks that occurs but as they later argue, exclusion from particular sorts of networks. I worked in a remote aboriginal community in central Australia in the early 1990’s where local Pitjantjatjara people lived (and still live) marginalized lives in third world conditions. Despite this level of marginality most families had strong, dense networks of extended family support. Children, for example, were surrounded not only be parents but also aunts, uncles and grandparents who all took responsibility for child rearing. These families and communities did not have access however to what Granovetter (1974) called “weak ties.” These refer to contacts (often occurring through “acquaintances of acquaintances”) that bridge into political and economic worlds, providing a more diversified set of exchanges. Marginal communities need ways of building these links and being empowered to lobby for better resources and employment.
It is pleasing to see Burton and Kagan explore the ethical question of why marginalisation should be challenged. It leads me to think about what social justice is and what should we be fighting for when we are in partnership with marginalized communities. Most people answer this in terms of the redistribution of resources. Ife (2002) argues that while the former is important, unless changes are made to the basic structures and discourses of oppression, which create and perpetuate inequality, little change will occur. Just as Burton and Kagan note, having such a perspective challenges practitioners to work for a broad social change agenda at individual, collective and structural levels.
Burton and Kagan’s case
studies of people seeking help for personal troubles and eventually overcoming
feelings of resignation and passivity to start making changes at the community
level, are excellent examples of how psychologists can start working with
marginalized people on this broader agenda. Recently I came across an article
that gave wise advice about how to be effective at this level. A famous
community development writer, Jack Rothman (2000) reviewed large numbers of
community building projects and concluded that a number of characteristics were
evident in those projects that successfully work alongside (rather than for)
those marginalized. The best conditions can be found where:
While these principles provide direction for a local practice framework and complement Burton and Kagan’s discussion of Freire’s conscientization strategies, the authors rightly warn of the risk of local social action ending up as isolated community activism. Moving from local micro practice to broader social change strategies that address marginalization and the processes that entrench it, is not easy. This is particularly the case when, as Mullaly argued earlier, marginalized people most often identify through a single source of oppression, such as being coloured or disabled. Investing in other groups is beyond their purview. Burton and Kagan’s suggestion that we build alliances with those at risk of being marginalized is well placed. Such alliances need to assist community activists who stand up and speak for marginalized groups and need to create broad networks and coalitions for social change.
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Box 1: Exercise - Marginality and the Economy
Once or twice a month a young man (we'll call him Tony) knocks on our door. He speaks with an impediment and begins his well-practised introduction about how he has been unemployed for more than a year so he thought he'd do something about it by selling some household items. The items are of poor quality and about 50% more expensive than in the shops, but some people buy them out of compassion, particularly if the weather is cold or wet. Tony of course knows that he is an object of pity and charity. Tony has to pay a fee to the company that runs the scheme. The company gave him a basic training and supplied the goods. He has to declare his earnings, and after a few pounds his social security is reduced by what he earns. Some weeks he is no better off than if he were not working, but in a good week he has a little extra - the social security is not sufficient to live on for more than a short time, and people build up debts.
In Britain people who are disabled through significant levels of intellectual difficulty still receive reasonably high state benefits, but the state monitors their wealth very closely. If they manage to save more than a few hundred pounds, the state reduces their benefit level. Since the early 1990s social services departments have (because of central government policy) levied a charge for the assistance people receive. Few people have waged employment because this can lead to a change in benefit status, so they risk becoming worse off if they lose the job. They are therefore trapped in a position of economic dependency, and subject to the official gaze.
Consider the following questions: What might be the implications of government policy for a person's self-concept, self-esteem, and confidence? Is the state making reasonable provision that its money is well spent, or is it proceeding from the belief that people are dishonest? In what ways do the actions of the state combine to maintain the marginality of the people mentioned?
Box 2: Listening to Parents of Children with
Disabilities
The experiences of parents of severely disabled children in England can throw light on processes of marginalisation and survival. One of us (CK) had been working with a group of parents of adult sons and daughters with severe and multiple impairments. The authority in which they lived had some money to support these parents and it had been agreed that the parents, not the professionals, should decide what it should be spent on. After a series of meetings, in which the parents had met each other, often for the first time, they agreed that what was needed was a 24-hour telephone line through which they could contact someone 'just to listen´ if needed.
On the whole they thought they managed pretty well, but every now and then things got too much for them. Senior managers from both the health and social services were invited to meet the parents and hear their suggestions. At this meeting they were concerned that a telephone line would not use up all the money available and pressed the parents for more concrete (and expensive) ideas. After a while one of the mothers, who had got impatient with the professionals, stood up and said 'I have looked after my son for 35 years. For 35 years no one has come near me and asked what I wanted. For 35 years I have not dared to even think about how our lives could be different. Now you come along and ask me 'What do I want'? How can I tell you what I want? When I do, you don't want to hear. We have said we want someone to be available on the telephone. You say 'Don't you want a washing machine?'. No, we want someone to listen to us.' The senior managers were humbled and the rest of the parents delighted. From then on, there were regular meetings between the parents and the services got a little better at listening to them.
Box 3: Doing Critical Community Psychology
The process of learning and the ability to translate this into practice is a key area of possibility for critical community psychological praxis. The transfer of knowledge and skills, and the strategic thinking often required to put them into practice, usually called 'capacity building' is one way in which community psychologists can shift resources over to those who are marginalised. Two examples from our own work can illustrate this.
The first is of a project that sought to enable community groups, interested in different ways in health and well being (and which varied from oral history groups, to walking clubs for elderly people, to regeneration of housing projects), to understand and use meaningful methods of evaluation. The knowledge and skills of evaluation are usually retained by professional experts and rarely by marginalized people. Through a process of participatory and creative evaluation techniques, modelled directly in multi-project workshops, some of this understanding was transferred to approximately 150 projects (Boyd, Geerling, Gregory, Midgley, Murray, Walsh and Kagan, 2001).
The second project is one in which we are working with colleagues in Kolkata, India, to enable health workers in urban slums to understand and be able to work with families with disabled children in order to maximise the likelihood of their inclusion in local life. Not only are slum dwellers marginalised because of their place at the bottom of the caste hierarchy, families with disabled children are further marginalized. These families are often unable to maintain the levels of work necessary for basic survival. Furthermore, they lose social contacts by being confined to their homes. Some of the intermediary health workers, too, are marginalized by virtue of the fact that they work in the slums and receive little funding for their work. Many of those involved in the project work as volunteers and themselves live in the slum areas. Thus the work is about enabling intermediary health workers to develop the capacity to work with disabled children and their families and then to pass on this knowledge and skill to the families and those who live locally themselves. (See Kagan and Scott-Roberts (2002) for discussion of community psychological perspectives on the project.)
Box 4: Example of Co-optation through Participation
An inner city suburb had its slum housing replaced in the late 1960s. Ten years later the 'deck access' flats were acknowledged to be another housing disaster. The flats were damp and expensive to heat; children had nowhere to play safely, and because it was difficult to monitor who was coming into the vicinity of each flat, there were high levels of vandalism and violence. The city council stopped housing families there, and the remaining families were found alternative accommodation. Nevertheless the accommodation suited some people, including students, single people and young childless couples, as well as craftspeople, and small social firms. Because of poor construction the majority of the flats needed replacement, so in the early 1990s the council won funding from central government for a complete rebuild of the area. The agency set up to lead the redevelopment affirmed the importance of working closely with the local population (as well as the development companies), consulting and holding a number of participatory events, so the people concerned could take part in the redesign of their neighbourhood.
Community development activists were of course involved in this work, and they were able to help local groups put forward proposals that were innovative on social, ecological sustainability, and architectural grounds. Nevertheless, it soon became clear that the extent of this participation was to be limited. In terms of Arnstein's (1969) 'ladder of citizen participation', for example, only the first five rungs (which together only amount to 'non-participation' and 'tokenism') were reached, with none of the top three (citizen power) rungs of partnership, delegated power, and citizen control being attained.
Of the proposals made by local people, only two small schemes were approved, and the bulk of the redevelopment was almost indistinguishable from that in any other redeveloped inner urban area, both in Britain and elsewhere. It was private capital that had the most influence on the design and operation of the new housing and structure of the neighborhood. As Croft and Beresford (e.g. 1992) suggest, the participation perhaps served some other purposes at a level of national (neo-liberal) government policy: delay, incorporation/co-option and diversion of the energy of activists, legitimation of pre-determined decisions and plans, and tokenistic involvement of minorities bypassing representative organizations.
The use of public participation, and its limited success (from the perspective of those who participated), can be understood in terms of the broader policy context whereby urban areas competed with one another for central government funds that supported redevelopment by large construction companies - to which the profits of course went. The participation by unrepresentative and ad hoc groups marginalised the already weakened structures of local democratic accountability, bypassing the local council. Nevertheless the whole enterprise could be cosmetically presented as an inclusive project where local voices were respected.
(Based on local experience and knowledge, and papers by; Croft and Beresford, 1992; Mayo, 1997; Randall, 1995; and Thekaekara and Thekaekara, 1995. See also Cooke and Kothari, 2001, for a more sustained critique of the abuse of participatory methods.)