Researching DoM is about exploring how a group of people is socially marginalized and what are the main social mechanisms of such a process. In this section, I attempt to develop a preliminary definition of ‘social marginalization’ as a socio-anthropological concept as well as a general research and debate framework that needs to be adapted and contextualized depending on the social context of the study.

Definition:

Social Marginalization happens when a group of people are relatively deprived of having equal and adequate opportunity to determine their relationships autonomously ( in any aspect of social life) with the members of the broader society.

Marginalization is usually associated with the lack of: 1.    representation in decision-making processes 2.    recognition of rights and responsibilities 3.    equal redistribution of resources and services

Studies of social inequality mostly provide us with rather static pictures of society in terms of the distribution of income, wealth, social opportunities. They pay less attention to the dynamics of social inequality

In contrast, studies of social marginalization open up a new angle in understanding how social inequalities and exclusions happen and evolve. These studies are expected to be theoretically integrative, multi-method, and cross-disciplinary regarding the multidimensionality of social marginalization.

https://marginalization.wordpress.com/2009/10/01/dynamics-of-social-marginalization-1

(c) S A Hamed Hosseini, 2009