Are you an Encapsulated or Constructive Cultural Marginal ?

While at the Families in Global Transition Conference last year I was able to hear intercultural communication specialist, Dr. Janet Bennett, discussing 'cultural marginality'. She defines this term as " a cultural lifestyle at the edges where two or more cultures meet". Cultural marginals would include (among others) refugees and immigrants, global nomads/TCKs and long-term adult sojourners in other cultures. Marginals living in this liminal space can be either encapsulated or constructive.

Encapsulated marginals, at core, have difficulty constructing a cohesive cultural identity. These individuals struggle to switch between the different frames of reference required by each culture they encounter; usually due to conflicting cultural cues and loyalties that remain unresolved. Encapsulated marginals may experience:

- Difficulty in making decisions and sticking to them
- Alienation from both/all cultures experienced
- A feeling of constant and isolating uniqueness
(terminal uniqueness)
- Difficulty establishing boundaries
- Difficulty in identifying personal truths that plays out in an extreme 'live and let live' stance
- Never, ever feeling at home

Constructive marginals, on the other hand, live in a state of what Muneo Yoshikawa calls, "dynamic in-betweenness". Rather than the either/or identity of encapsulation these individuals are able to live in a both/and state of integration of their various cultures. As Bennett says, " By maintaining control of choice and the construction of boundaries, a person may become a constructive marginal. This individual is able to construct context intentionally and consciously for the purpose of creating his or her own identity." Constructive marginals may experience:

- Knowledge of which cultural framework to use in making
decisions
- A feeling of authenticity in all of his/her cultures
- Cultural curiosity and a happy acknowledgement of
cultural difference
- A clear sense and understanding of personal truth
- A recognition of their reference group: other cultural
marginals
- A sincere understanding that one is never not at home in the world

As the incomparable Pico Iyer says,

"...the fact remains that humans have never lived with quite this kind of mobility and uprootedness before....A lack of affiliation may mean a lack of accountability, and forming a sense of commitment can be hard without a sense of community. Displacement can encourage the wrong kinds of distance, and if the nationalism we see sparking up around the globe arises from too narrow and fixed a sense of loyalty, the internationalism that's coming to birth may reflect too roaming and undefined a sense of belonging. The Global Soul may see so many sides of every question that he never settles on a firm conviction; he may grow so used to giving back a different self according to his environment that he loses sight of who he is when nobody's around. Even the most basic questions have to be answered by him alone, and when, on the planes where he may make his home, the cabin attendant passes down the aisle with disembarkation forms, it may be dificult for him to fill in any of the boxes: "Home Address," " Citizenship," "Purpose of Visit," even "Marital Status."
I can answer almost any of these questions from a variety of perspectives.... But though this can be a natural- and useful- enough impulse in response to the question, "Where do you come from?" it becomes more treacherous in answer to the question "Where do you stand?"

Families in Global Transition

I recently returned from the Families in Global Transition http://www.incengine.org/incEngine/?site=figt&art=about_us conference in Houston, Texas. The conference pulls service providers from every sector in which ex-pats are made (missions, foreign service, business and military).It was three days of the kinds of interactions a Third Culture Kid dreams of: intense, highly relational, straight to the point, shoot from the hip, we- must- have- been -separated- at -birth type connecting. I realized that my propensity to stare deeply into people's eyes while grabbing their arm before we have even exchanged names is culturally acceptable and indeed highly practiced at this conference. It was a wonderful reminder to me that as a "global nomad" I do indeed have a distinct, cohesive culture. It can get a bit cold out here in the margins or as Pico Iyer says "as one of the In-betweeners". It was a balm to my soul to slide so easily into a group of people as diverse as the crowd at the FIGT and to feel an ease of understanding, an ability to track and flow and operate with intellect and intuition in tandem instead of with my poor, overworked intuition continually scanning for cultural cues. In short, I felt as at home as someone without a geographically based sense of home can feel.

One of the best descriptions I have found of this feeling of coming home is in the novel, The Inheritance of Loss, by Kiran Desai. The character, Biju, is arriving home to India from New York city.

"Biju stood there in that dusty tepid soft sari night. Sweet drabness of home-he felt everything shifting and clicking into place around him, felt himself slowly shrink back to size, the enormous anxiety of being a foreigner ebbing- that unbearable arrogance and shame of the immigrant. Nobody paid attention to him here, and if they said anything at all, their words were easy, unconcerned. He looked about and for the first time in God knows how long, his vision unblurred and he found that he could see clearly."