Situating Marginalities in India: An Introduction

Abstract

What constitutes situations of marginality for different groups or individuals situated variously in the Indian social structure? What do their articulations of marginality tell us about ourselves and other, our idealised versions of them? What is the heuristic value of the concept of marginality in allowing us to apprehend processes of transformations, integration and conflicts? Such questions and concerns have repeatedly been posed in the literature on marginality since the time it came into vogue in the early decades of the twentieth century. Given the more globalised, post-colonial world in which marginals in our society inhabit, any interrogation into marginalities, marginal and marginalisation warrants a reassessment of the analytical and historical category of marginality itself, while raising critical questions about the nature of social power and its linkages with structural and cultural processes.