How , Today in the Library of the IMIR, I interviewed Arthur Mot on the topic of marginality. Here is an excerpt:
Q: What do you think is meant by marginality?
M: Well, it is a broad idea and captures a range of situations. It always involves a concept of an inside or centre, and an outside, or edge. Being on the outside could mean feelings of rejection and longing, or feelings of strength and leadership, so an important difference between one experience of marginality and another is the feelings that come with it. Travel to the margins can feel like loss or gain depending upon conditions such as the origin of the boundary, and the memory of how the marginalization came about. The meanings we assign to our own marginalization or the marginalization of others determine how marginality and the marginalized are treated.
The story that goes with it can become an influence on self-perception. When a person starts constructing their own identity as marginalized and powerless, the condition is negative. This could come from a self-imposed marginalization or from ostracization and isolation by others, or it could come from circumstances beyond anyone’s control, such as a natural disaster that skews the sense of belonging. On the other hand, someone who establishes their identity as marginalized from a place of strength and leadership has a different experience. I have been in both situations at different times in my own life.
We all move in and out of marginality. A positive way of interpreting marginality is that it is essential to renewal. When marginality is treated as negative, those in the centre tend to treat the edge condition with fear and cruelty rather than respect and curiosity. This is where dialogue becomes a beautiful process to facilitate growth and renewal. When the centre speaks with the edge respectfully and the edge with the centre, we have flow. This is true of both intrapersonal and interpersonal growth.
Think of the way a village needs the local dump as a site for waste. The dump is an important part of the village as a whole and you cannot know the village unless you know the dump. Here is where the category of marginality is revealed. The act of choosing what is to be marginalized is a key ritual that expresses important aspects of a society. In this, some of its notions about refuse, refusal, refusés, nature, and humanity find their only expression. Systems and processes related to the same are revealed.
Systems in societies and psyches are the same. You need to travel to the edge and say, “Talk to me. Help me understand.” Likewise, the edge needs to talk to the centre. The problem is that the centre generally has the power, the sense of entitlement, and the option to dominate. This happens when a system assigns negative meanings to marginality.
Q: Isn’t marginality most often painful and beyond a person’s control? The centre is not always interested in talking.
M: I do not want to diminish the pain of forced marginalization, which can be generational and go on for centuries. I am envisioning a centre that is ignorant and well-meaning rather than hateful. Hate has to be addressed before marginality can be mitigated by hope. I am saying that even in the most ideal situation, some ideas and people will be marginalized, and a well-meaning society needs to recognize this and develop processes for allowing movement throughout the whole.
Q: Is marginality always a state of consciousness? Could it exist without awareness?
M: Hmm well think about the source. It is an idea. It comes from consciousness. Now there are places we identify as geographic margins, for example, that do not have an awareness of their marginality because, as far as we know, they are not conscious. I am talking about inanimate edges. Marginality is always relative to awareness. We could say it always depends upon perception and conceptual processes of identification and classification. My centre is your margin. It is subject to constant movement. Today’s centre is tomorrow’s margin and vice versa.
Q: Would you say marginalization and identity are connected?
M: I have noticed that people tend always to look for whether they are in or out. It is an important question. Some people tell themselves they do not care about whether they are in or out, but humans are social, and there is a need to belong somewhere. People can be marginalized in one area of life and not in another, marginalized today and not tomorrow, or marginalized in Pleasantville and not in Alert Bay. The same person can feel both included and excluded, or inside in one way, and outside in another. We see communities of the marginalized and communities based on remaining in some margin or other. Marginality is an extremely complicated experience and yes, I think it is always connected to identity, and changes as identity and relationships evolve.
Q: What would you say about the nature of marginalization in the IMIR?
M: The IMIR was started as a conduit for connection between margins and centres or margin to margin. It looks for ways of mitigating marginality with hope, and treats it as a chance for clarity. Humans did not see the Earth until they left the centre and looked back. At the edge, we are between worlds, just as the astronaut is. The IMIR values the insights that arise from marginality. I suppose one of my hopes for the IMIR is that it might make the inevitable experience of marginalization more bearable and even interesting and empowering. The IMIR hopes to make the experience as productive and beneficial as it can be. It could be a refuge for the refusés in everyone – at least a some aspect of refuge.
Q: What is the relationship of imagination and marginalization?
M: That is an interesting question. Imagination is the flower of marginality. Think of how wild flowers grow in the village dump. Once free of the centre, you can imagine a new world while having nothing to lose. The astronaut floating outside the Earth and looking back from between worlds has had an experience that will change it for them and others. This outsider position can become a place of insight and visioning.
Q: Well Mot, thank you for taking time out to speak with me. I know you are busy right now with your research in the workroom.
M: Any time.
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