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Marginality Reconsidered

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Precarious Enterprise on the Margins

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Abstract

Writing about marginality is invariably fraught: the lives of the homeless , poor and marginal are often portrayed as ‘failed’ lives. Critically reflecting on how research often replicates, rather than challenges, the representation of ‘failed lives’, this chapter offers an alternative approach to marginality. Drawing on postcolonial scholar Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s notion of ‘margins’ as the “silent, silenced centre”, and surveying recent theorisations of precarity, poverty and expulsion, Gerrard argues for the importance of understanding marginality as an expression of the inequalities of the wider social relations of capitalism. Linking this approach to marginality to the research undertaken for this book, Gerrard outlines the research focus on the everyday working lives of homeless street press sellers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Melbourne, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Jessica Gerrard

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  1. Jessica Gerrard
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Gerrard, J. (2017). Marginality Reconsidered. In: Precarious Enterprise on the Margins. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59483-9_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59483-9_2

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-59482-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-59483-9

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