Marginality and Crisis: Globalization and Identity in Contemporary Africa extends the scope and understanding of the effects of globalization and its forces on Africa. With each chapter written by specialists who recognize that the future of Africa is entwined with that of the rest of the world, this volume explains with fresh vigor the new thinking on the historical specificity, value, opportunity, and shortcomings of globalization for a continent many regard as marginalized and in crisis. In the face of much pessimism, several questions have engaged the attention of this young generation of African scholars: Where is Africa in relation to globalization? Where are the things that make Africa Africa (such as economy, politics, culture, identity, and human relations) headed? Are Africa's communities helpless against global forces or empowered by new avenues of access? How do scholars and policymakers engage the problems of globalization vis-^-vis Africa's ethnic, linguistic, and other identities? What are the economic and political trajectories in various countries and localities? An invaluable source for scholars, students, and the general reader, the essays in this book have confidently and clearly explored and explained the crises that have engulfed the continent in the age of globalization. Unlike other works that have dwelt only on the continent's victimhood, this volume identifies key areas in which Africa can become more proactive and outward-looking in response to the forces and values that take the globe as their reference points.

This book traces the major stages in the evolution of the sociological concept of marginality, highlighting in particular the contribution made by Gino Germani. Its purpose is to analyse, starting with the sociological theory of the early 1960s, the progressive maturation of the scientific status of the concept of marginality, and to test the theoretical premise that gave rise to Germani's theory of marginality.The author begins by examining the contribution of the Chicago School. He explores the complex relationship between the theory of marginality and modernization by analysing North American theses and the criticisms mainly generated in Latin America. The goal is to reconstruct Germani's theoretical model of marginality, addressing its application to contemporary social and economic conditions.Giardiello's analysis is intertwined with two themes that are central to Germani's thought about marginality. The first concerns the origin of the concept of social exclusion within sociological thought. The second shows how marginality is clearly a phenomenology connected to the contradictions of modernity. Germani's paradigm of marginality enables the social scientist to resolve the contradictions between the analytical perspectives that deal with marginality in an objective way and the one that observes it subjectively.

This research examines the impacts of a large-scale disaster on a marginalized community. Specifically, both practical and more abstract effects of the attacks of September 11, 2001, on the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community in New York City are examined.