Previous Year Question
The concept of ‘Marginal Man’ was propounded by
Robert E. Park
Robert Redfield
Louis Wirth
Louis Dumont
Correct Answer: A
Detailed Solution
Sociologist Robert E. Park introduced the concept of the Marginal Man in his famous 1928 article “Human Migration and the Marginal Man.”
A Marginal Man refers to an individual who is positioned between two different cultural or social worlds but is not fully integrated into either one.
Migration, cultural contact and social change may place an individual in a situation where the values, norms and identities of two cultures operate simultaneously within the person.
According to Park, it is in the mind of such an individual that different cultures meet, conflict and eventually become integrated in some form.
Sociologist Everett V. Stonequist later developed the concept of the Marginal Man further, but its original formulation is credited to Robert E. Park.