On the concept and process of marginalization

The concept of marginalization has its genesis in the processes of transformation which have characterized the societies of Latin America (CEPAL). It is increasingly being used to denote similar processes in other parts of the world through which groups of the population are relegated to conditions which do not allow them to participate actively, eguitably and productively in the societies of which they form part. The concept has a dynamic connotation as it suggests the processes by which people become marginal. For some years the attention of social scientists was geared less to the nature of the processes which bring about a state of marginality than to the state of marginality itself, understood as a set of conditions which should serve to explain the particular problems and nature of that part of the population which had become marginal.