A Response to Marginality

The Case of Migrant Farm Workers

Bibliographic Data

ID11516868
AuthorsDorothy Nelkin (corresponding author)
Year1969
Volume20
Issue4
Pages375-375
Publication date1969-12-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueBritish Journal of Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0007-1315 • E-ISSN: 1468-4446
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.2307/588923
PMID5392956
OpenAlexW1997734038
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited8

This paper will explore aspects of the social organization of migrant farm labour crews. These crews constitute a distinctive type of sociocultural organization. However, many of the characteristics of migrant labour crews have developed, not as a reflection of internal cultural values, but as an adaptive response to their marginal position in American society. The marginality of the migrant worker is not adequately reflected in the classic definition of the marginal man 'who through migration, education, marriage, or some other influence leaves one social group or culture without making a satisfactory adjustment to another and finds himself on the margins of each but a member of neither' (Stonequist, 1937, PP. 2-3). This definition stresses the personal ambivalence of the individual poised between two distinct cultures, who experiences problems to the extent that these cultures conflict. Some of the qualifications and redefinitions stimulated by Stonequist seem somewhat more relevant.2 In particular, Antonowski (1956, p. 57) included in his definition of a marginal situation, examples 'where some of the members of one group for one reason or another come under the influence of another group ... and where cultural and/or racial barriers serve to block full and legitimate membership within another group'. In the situation considered in this paper, the relevant issue is not 'culture conflict' experienced by mobile individuals: the emphasis must be placed on the isolation of a group and the relatively impermeable barriers established by the dominant society. The migrant community is marginal in that it is situated on the margins of a larger society. Economically and legally, migrants must cope with the realities of this society and they are expected to share its values. They are not accepted as belonging to a distinct and viable sub-culture, nor are they fully accepted as a part of the larger society. In this sense, marginality is a situational context in which the migrant community must minimize internal disruptions while, at the same time, it must come to terms with the larger society on which it depends

Agriculture · Archaeology · Business · Economic growth · Economics · Farm workers · Geography · Migrant workers · Agriculture and Farm Safety · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy

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