SOCIOLOGY OF MARGINALISED

GROUPS (DSC -7)

U N IT I : I N T R OD U C T ION

C H APT ER N O. 2 : C AU S E S OF M A R GI N AL IS AT I ON ; M A R GI N AL I ZE D
GR OUP S : C AS T E , GE N D E R , P E OP L E W I T H D I S A B IL IT IE S , M I N OR I T IE S ,
T R IB E S A N D E L D E R LY
C H APT ER N O. 3 : S OC IO - E C ON OM I C I N D IC E S OF M A R GI N AL IS AT I ON :
P OVE RT Y , R E L AT I VE D E P R IVAT I ON , E XP LOITAT I ON , D I S C R IM IN AT ION ,
E D UC AT ION AL B AC KWAR D N E S S , I N E QU AL IT Y A N D U N T OU C H AB I L I T Y

Faculty - Guneeta Kaur Gill

 Marginalization can occur for various reasons,
and here are some common causes:

1. Discrimination and Prejudice: Marginalization often stems from discrimination based on factors

such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, disability, or socio-economic status.

Prejudiced attitudes and biases lead to the exclusion and marginalization of certain groups within

society.

2. Historical and Cultural Factors: Historical events, colonization, imperialism, and legacies of

oppression can contribute to marginalization. Certain groups may have been historically oppressed

or disadvantaged, leading to long-lasting effects that continue to marginalize them in contemporary

society.
3. Power Dynamics: Power imbalances and unequal power distribution play a
significant role in marginalization. Dominant groups or individuals with greater
social, economic, or political power may consciously or unconsciously marginalize
others to maintain their privileged position.

4. Stereotyping and Stigmatization: Stereotypes and stigmas attached to specific

identities can result in marginalization. When individuals or groups are stereotyped
based on their characteristics, abilities, or backgrounds, they may face social
exclusion and limited opportunities.
4. Lack of Representation and Voice: Marginalization can occur when certain
groups are not adequately represented in decision-making processes or institutions.
When individuals lack political representation or the ability to voice their concerns
and needs, their interests may be overlooked, perpetuating their marginalization.

5. Intersectionality: Intersectionality recognizes that individuals can experience

multiple forms of marginalization simultaneously. The intersecting factors of race,
gender, class, sexuality, and other identities can compound marginalization and
create unique forms of exclusion and discrimination.
 Marginalised groups

Caste - The marginalization of caste refers to the social, economic, and political exclusion faced by individuals
belonging to lower castes. This issue is particularly prevalent in certain regions of South Asia, such as India,
Nepal, and Pakistan. Caste-based marginalization is deeply rooted in historical, cultural, and religious factors, and
it continues to persist despite legal and social reforms. Indian society is divided into numerous castes and sub
castes numbering in thousands. The broad classification of castes into three categories: (1) The dwijas or the upper
castes, (2) The middle castes, commonly known as backward castes or classes, and (3) The lower castes or the
untouchables of the earlier times. These castes have traditionally been ranked in a ritual hierarchy.

The social mobility among scheduled castes can be understood better in the light of some empirical data. For
example, the literacy rate of the scheduled castes have increased from 10 per cent in 1961 to nearly 37 per cent in
1991. Another indication of social change and social mobility among the scheduled castes in.the rural and urban
societies can be inferred from the incidents of caste tensions and caste conflicts. Most of the violence against the
scheduled castes took place due to their occupations.
2. Gender - The marginalization of gender refers to the social, economic, and political exclusion experienced by
individuals based on their gender identity or gender expression. It is rooted in patriarchal norms, power
imbalances, and discriminatory practices that limit the opportunities and rights of certain genders.

In the Indian tradition, ancient Indian texts accord unequal status to women. Texts like the Atharvaveda consist
of charms and rituals in to ensure a male child over a daughter (Altekar,1956, p.3)

Within the western intellectual tradition, early Christian scholars like St. Jerome (347-420), St. Clement (150-
215), St. Augustine (354-450) had very conservative notions of the corrupting influence of women. St. Jerome
viewed marriage as a necessary evil required to produce legitimate progeny. Medieval literary texts like
Guillaume de Lorris (1200-1240) and Jean de Meun’s (1240-1305) Roman de la Rose (1230-1275) characterise
women as being deceitful, untrustworthy and therefore justify the subordination of women on the grounds that a
woman’s spirit needs to be improved by the control and guidance provided by men.

Various interpretations of religious texts proclaimed a “view that women’s inferior status rested on God-
ordained biological, physical, intellectual and moral inferiority” (Brewer, 2005, p.7).
Heidi Hartman defines patriarchy as “… a set of social relations between men, which have a material base, and
which, though hierarchical, establish or create interdependence and solidarity among men that enable them to
dominate women. Though patriarchy is hierarchical and men of different classes, races or ethnic groups have
different places in the patriarchy, they are also united in their shared relationship of dominance over women;
they are dependent on each other to maintain that domination” (Hartman,1981, p. 107).

Frederich Engels’ (1820-1895) posited labour and economy at the root of the suppression, exclusion and
marginalisation of women from mainstream society. In Engels’ opinion, it was possible to overcome gender
oppression as like class, gender was a conditioning enforced on women, it was not natural for women to remain
subordinate, submissive and weak. Patriarchal society had constructed the notion of ideal womanhood in such a
manner.

In India, the rise of the early women’s movements was tied to the emerging nationalist sentiment. It is in the
nineteenth century reform initiatives that were taken against sati and promoting widow remarriage that debates
regarding the status of women in Indian society emerged.
People with disability

• People with disabilities (PWD) are one of the most marginalized groups in the society.

• A marginalized disabled person refers to an individual with disabilities who experiences societal
disadvantage, discrimination, and exclusion due to their disability status.

• Marginalization occurs when a person or a group is pushed to the fringes of society, preventing them
from fully participating in social, economic, and political aspects of life.
 MINORITY

• The marginalization of minorities refers to the systematic

disadvantage, discrimination, and exclusion experienced by
individuals or groups based on their race, ethnicity, religion,
gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, or other
characteristics that make them different from the dominant or
privileged majority in a given society.
 T R I B E S A N D E L D E R LY

• Land and resource rights

• Socioeconomic disparities Tribes

• Limited political representation

• Healthcare disparities
• Economic vulnerability Elderly
• Social isolation
• Neglect and abuse
 CHAPTER NO. 3: SOCIO-ECONOMIC
INDICES OF MARGINALISATION:
POVERTY, RELATIVE DEPRIVATION,
EXPLOITATION, DISCRIMINATION,
EDUCATIONAL BACKWARDNESS,
INEQUALITY AND UNTOUCHABILITY
 POVERTY
• Around 1.3 billion people, which is nearly a quarter of the world’s population, live in extreme poverty,
and 70 per cent of these people are women. They have no access to health services or schools.

• Poverty exists when a group of people in a particular society cannot attain a

minimum level of living and well-being.

• People who are experiencing marginalization are likely to have tenuous involvement in the economy.

• People's income sources will vary. Some will be waged, and some will 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 earning money in their struggle
for survival. Poverty, dependency, and feelings of shame are everyday aspects of economic dislocation
and social marginalization.

• Poverty is not only a condition of economic insufficiency; it is also social and political exclusion.
ABSOLUTE POVERTY: Absolute poverty, a condition of acute physical wants, refers to the stark inability of a person or a

household to provide even the most basic necessities of life. It encompasses the grim realities of starvation, malnutrition, lack

of clothing, inadequate shelter, and a complete absence of medical care. This state of 'subsistence poverty' is determined by

assessing the bare minimum requirements for survival, such as nutrition measured by intake of calories and proteins, shelter

by quality of dwelling and degree of over-crowding, and the rate of infant mortality and the quality of medical facility. Absolute

deprivation or absolute poverty is a potentially life-threatening situation that occurs when income falls below a level adequate

to maintain food and shelter.

RELATIVE POVERTY: As there are difficulties in fully accepting “absolute poverty”, another term “relative poverty” has been

developed. According to this concept, poverty is measured according to life standards at a given time and place. The idea is

that the standards of society can change. Therefore, the definition of poverty should be related to the needs and demands of

changing societies. In 1960, those with a per capita income of Rs.20/- or less per month in rural areas were considered below

the poverty line. In 1990, those with an income of less than Rs.122/- per month were considered below the poverty line. The

term “relative poverty” also refers to different societies having different standards. Hence, it is not possible to have a universal

measurement of poverty. Those who are considered poor in the USA by their standards may not be considered so in India.

• Absolute and relative poverty trends may move in opposite directions. Relative poverty may decline, while absolute poverty sometimes increases.
 R E L A T I V E D E P R I V A T I O N

• Relative deprivation is the lack of resources to sustain the diet, lifestyle, activities, and amenities that an individual or group is accustomed to or widely encouraged or
approved of in the society to which they belong.

• Relative deprivation is the experience of being deprived of something to which one believes to be entitled. It refers to the discontent people feel when they compare
their positions to others and realise that they have less of what they believe themselves to be entitled to than those around them.

• Some scholars of social movements explain their rise by citing the grievances of people who feel deprived of what they perceive as values to which they are entitled.
Similarly, individuals engage in deviant behaviours when their means do not match their goals.

• Feelings of deprivation are relative, as they come from a comparison to social norms that are not absolute and usually differ from time and place.

• Critics of this theory have pointed out that this theory fails to explain why some people who feel discontent fail to take action and join social movements.

• Relative deprivation refers to inequality: the idea that people are deprived (materially or in other ways) compared with others in
society.

• Some sociologists—for instance, Karl Polanyi—have argued that relative differences in economic wealth are more important than
absolute deprivation and that this is a more significant determinant of human quality of life. This debate has important consequences
for social policy, particularly on whether poverty can be eliminated simply by raising total wealth or whether egalitarian measures are
also needed.

• A specific form of relative deprivation is relative poverty. A measure of relative poverty defines poverty as being below some relative
poverty line, such as households earning less than 20% of the median income. Notice that if everyone’s real income in an economy
 Educational Backwardness
Educational backwardness and marginalisation refer to the condition where certain
groups or individuals have limited access to quality education, resulting in their
exclusion. This can occur due to various factors, including socioeconomic status, gender,
ethnicity, disability, geographical location, and cultural or linguistic differences.

When individuals or groups are educationally marginalised, they face significant barriers
that hinder their ability to participate and benefit from the educational system fully.
 EXPLOITATION, DISCRIMINATION

• Exploitation occurs when one social group is able to take for itself what is produced by another group.
The concept is central to the idea of social oppression, especially from a Marxist perspective, and can also
include noneconomic forms, such as the sexual exploitation of women by men under patriarchy.
• The concept of exploitation is a central one in Marxism. A key claim of Marxism is that capitalism, like
previous class-divided societies, rests on the exploitation of the class of direct producers. Just like the
slave system was built on the exploitation of the slaves, the direct producers in a slave system, and the
feudal system rested on the exploitation of the serfs, who were the direct producers in feudalism, the
capitalist system rests on the exploitation of the working class, the direct producers in capitalism.
• Exploitation can be transactional or structural. In the former case, the unfairness is a property of a
discrete transaction between two or more individuals. A sweatshop that pays low wages, for example, or a
pharmaceutical research firm that tests drugs on poor subjects in the developing world, might be said to
exploit others in this sense. But exploitation can also be structural—a property of institutions or systems
in which the “rules of the game” unfairly benefit one group of people to the detriment of another.
• Exploitation can also be harmful or mutually beneficial. Harmful exploitation involves an interaction that
leaves the victim worse off than she was, and than she was entitled to be. The sort of exploitation
involved in coercive sex trafficking, for instance, is harmful in this sense. But as we will see below, not all
exploitation is harmful. Exploitation can also be mutually beneficial, where both parties walk away better
off than they were ex ante. Most philosophers think that what makes such mutually beneficial interactions
nevertheless exploitative is that they are, in some way, unfair.
 EXPLOITATION, DISCRIMINATION

• Discrimination consists of actions against a group of people. Discrimination can be based on race,
ethnicity, age, religion, health, and other categories. For example, discrimination based on race or
ethnicity can take many forms, from unfair housing practices such as redlining to biased hiring
systems.
• Discrimination also manifests in different ways. The scenarios above are examples of individual
discrimination, but other types exist. Institutional discrimination occurs when a societal system has
developed with embedded disenfranchisement of a group, such as the U.S. military's historical
nonacceptance of minority sexualities (the "don't ask, don't tell" policy reflected this norm).
• While the form and severity of discrimination vary significantly, they are considered forms of
oppression. Institutional discrimination can also include the promotion of a group's status, such as
privilege, which is the benefits people receive simply by being part of the dominant group.
• The discussion so far has centered on individual discrimination, or discrimination that individuals
practice daily, usually because they are prejudiced but sometimes even if they are not. Examples of
individual discrimination abound in today’s world.
• Much individual discrimination occurs in the workplace, as sociologist Denise Segura (1992)
documented when she interviewed 152 Mexican American women working in white-collar jobs at a
public university in California. More than 40% of the women said they had encountered workplace
discrimination based on their ethnicity and/or gender, and they attributed their treatment to
stereotypes held by their employers and coworkers.
 EXPLOITATION, DISCRIMINATION

• Individual discrimination is important to address, but at least as consequential in today’s world is

institutional discrimination, or discrimination that pervades the practices of whole institutions, such as
housing, medical care, law enforcement, employment, and education. This type of discrimination does
not just affect a few isolated people of colour. Instead, it affects large numbers of individuals simply
because of their race or ethnicity. Sometimes, institutional discrimination is also based on gender,
disability, and other characteristics.
• In the area of race and ethnicity, institutional discrimination often stems from prejudice, as was
certainly true in the South USA during segregation. However, just as individuals can discriminate
without being prejudiced, so can institutions when they engage in practices that seem to be racially
neutral but, in fact, have a discriminatory effect. Individuals in institutions can also discriminate
without realizing it. They make decisions that turn out upon close inspection to discriminate against
people of colour even if they did not mean to do so.
• (noun) The unequal treatment of an individual or group on the basis of their statuses (e.g., age,
beliefs, ethnicity, sex) by limiting access to social resources (e.g., education, housing, jobs, legal
rights, loans, or political power).
• Discrimination is often divided into de facto discrimination and de jure discrimination. De facto (Latin
for “concerning fact”) discrimination describes covert social practices, such as avoidance, while de
jure (Latin for “concerning law” or “in law”) discrimination describes overt discrimination, such as
women not being allowed to vote or minorities not serving on juries.
• “In addition to prejudices, the dominant group also applies various actions against minority ethnic
groups, including avoidance, denial, threat, or physical attack. At different times, all of these forms
of coercion may be used, depending on how threatening the minority group is perceived to be.
These actions are collectively called discrimination” (Marger 1985:45).
• Prejudice and discrimination are often confused, but the basic difference between them is that
prejudice is an attitude, while discrimination is a behaviour.
• More specifically, racial and ethnic prejudice refers to a set of negative attitudes, beliefs, and
judgments about whole categories of people and about individual members of those categories
because of their perceived race and/or ethnicity.
• A closely related concept is racism or the belief that certain racial or ethnic groups are inferior to
one’s own.
• Prejudice and racism are often based on racial and ethnic stereotypes or simplified, mistaken
generalisations about people because of their race and/or ethnicity.
 Inequality
• Inequality and marginalisation are interconnected concepts that describe the unequal
distribution of resources, opportunities, and power within society, leading to the exclusion
and disadvantage of certain individuals or groups.
• Inequality is generated by the capitalist economy where wealth is concentrated in the
hands of a few, according to Marx. These few gain control of the means of producing
wealth such as slaves, land and capital. They are able to influence the political process,
by which social inequality is managed.
• Essentially, poverty boils down to the fact that some people are poor because others are
rich. Since the rich have greater political power than the poor, government policy tends to
favour them. The rich, therefore, tend to remain rich, and the poor tend to remain poor.
Marx claimed that all history is a history of class conflict; hence, the situation can change
only when the poor have greater political influence.
• The World Bank in its special study on ‘Inequality in 2008’ has defined the “Equity in
terms of disparities in opportunities which translate into different abilities to contribute in
inequality of different economic and social inequality” (World Bank, 2008). It further
explains that distribution of opportunities matters more than the distribution of incomes.
• Inequality is an outcome of inequity at different levels and identified features. The term
inequality has many different meanings; we can describe inequality in terms of
distribution of economic well-being expressed in terms of income and consumption
expenditure amongst countries, states of the nation and among different classes.
 Inequality
• Relating to the cause and consequence of inequality, it is described as structural
inequality arising out of the structural distribution factor of production like land and
capital social inequality among classes due to unequal holding of the income and
sources of income and expenditure.
• Marginalisation is also a related concept, as it lies in inequality when inequality takes its
worst form. Those who are affected at the bottom of the inequality pyramid are totally
marginalised in the sense that they are thrown to the margins of the mainstream
economy and deprived of not only development opportunities but also sources of
subsistence. In India, the socioeconomic structure is such that the most backward social
classes, such as tribals and scheduled castes (Dalits), are also economically the most
backward classes.
• This marginalisation could be measured in the indicators of income, education and
health, participation of marginalised producer in the market and benefits of
infrastructural development of their rural areas.
• Marginalisation itself is a major indicator of social and economic exclusion and social and
economically marginalised villages particularly lack infrastructural benefits and
development opportunities like education, health and employment, etc.
 Untouchability
• The practice of untouchability historically involves restrictions on inter-caste interactions, including physical touch,
access to public spaces, places of worship, educational institutions, and other resources. Dalits have faced social
exclusion, denial of basic rights, and limited opportunities, poverty and marginalisation.
• There is a social group that falls outside the varna system and is called avarnas. They are different from savarnas,
who belong to the chaturvarna (four varnas) scheme mentioned above. Shudras, despite being a lower varna,
belong to savaranas and are therefore considered better than avarnas. Being outside the varna scheme, avarnas
do not enjoy any privileges, which are otherwise available to rest of the members. In caste hierarchy, they are
considered lower even to Shudras. Avarnas were considered outcaste people and traditionally they were not
permitted to have any social ties with members of the mainstream society and were also not allowed to own any
resources. They used to live on the outskirts of the village and, with no means of production or employment, they
used to depend completely on savarnas for their survival. This was the group that was traditionally called the
untouchables.
• In 1931 Census, untouchables were covered under the term “Depressed Classes.”
• In 1928, the Depressed Classes Association was formed which functioned up to 1942 (Louis 2003). The term,
however, was contested by Dr Ambedkar in 1932 because the term created an impression of these communities as
helpless and lowly. In 1935, the term “…Scheduled Caste was coined by the Simon Commission and embodied in
the Government of India Act, 1935. In 1936, for the first time Government of British India published a list of
Scheduled Castes” (Louis 2003).
• The social category of Scheduled Castes is today a common denominator of those castes whose earlier generations
were once considered untouchables by the traditional caste order. Since 1970s, the preferred term used for the
erstwhile untouchables is Dalits, which gained currency in literature and social sciences. The term Dalit in Hindi
implies ‘the oppressed’ and its adoption by the Scheduled Castes reflects the political aspirations and activist mode
of the community. The term implies a conscious recognition by the oppressed community of its unnatural condition
of deprivation and marginality created by social, historical and political forces of the dominant Hindu social order.