Yanitsky O.N. On Marginal Man Concept 100 Years Ago and Today. Official Portal Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2019, pp. 1-8. URL: http: ...

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Abstract

The article represents a historical-sociological research of the development of the marginal man concept developed by the US sociologists R. Park. Drawing upon the works of Russian and foreign sociologists on the issue including the newest research of the marginalization processes by D. Stokols and on my previous and current works as a specialist in the Chicago School of human ecology the author came to the following conclusions. The marginal man concept is one of the basic ones in modern sociology because it focused on permanently developing relationships between the individual’s behavior, and his/her living environment of various scale and character. Current marginalization is different from that of developed by Park and his associates. It’s a product of quick changes, permanent uncertainties and unintended consequences generated by changing global market and voluntary decision of global stakeholders. It is stated that a certain degree of the marginality is necessary to the individuals and the society as a whole because it stimulates a creative thinking, generates new modes of adaptation to unknown and mobile social environment and new rules of games, and the search of new methods and practical instruments for the gaining of a relative sustainability of the individuals and groups. At the same time an individual’s marginalization has its limits conditioned both by his adaptation potential and the scale, character and pace of ongoing changes. The author concluded that the character of marginalization and man’s adaptation to his/her environment will follow an evolution of the global world.