Marginalized Populations

Marginalized populations are those excluded from mainstream social, economic, cultural, or political life. Examples of marginalized populations include, but are by no means limited to, groups excluded due to race, religion, political or cultural group, age, gender, or financial status. To what extent such populations are marginalized, however, is context specific and reliant on the cultural organization of the social site in question.

Acknowledging marginalized populations in research necessarily involves acknowledging unequal power relationships between groups within society. These power imbalances occur either within the research process or within society more broadly to shape the way research is conducted, interpreted, and acted upon. It is argued that, given the dominant voices that underpin quantitative research, research that aims to emancipate marginalized populations must be qualitative in nature. This belief is suggested, as qualitative research aims to “give voice” to participants and allow them to tell their stories. However, participants in qualitative research often remain as participants and are sought out by the researcher (rather than seeking out the researcher) to participate in the researcher's (rather than their own) agenda. As such, the research process remains deeply political, as researchers and participants may not share a common power base and may instead come at the issue from different perspectives. New approaches, however, challenge traditional demarcations between researcher and participants and provide new ways to both engage marginalized populations in research and use research to challenge marginalization in society.

Participatory research methods provide ways for both researchers and participants to identify research topics, gather evidence to illustrate these, and disseminate findings. As such, participatory research provides a framework for reflexivity during the research process to identify issues such as voice, representation, [Page 496]vulnerability, and control. Often participatory projects also contain an action component where participants take an active role in deciding how the results are used to their own, and the researcher's, advantage.

Critical research methods provide another avenue through which unequal power relationships can be documented and challenged. Although some critical approaches are also participatory, often they assume more traditional researcher and participant roles and instead focus on exposing the underlying differentiations between groups and the social functions they perform. The advantages and disadvantages of these differentiations and the power hierarchies used to enforce them are scrutinized with the purpose of highlighting inequities and championing the cause of marginalized groups.

In conclusion, marginalized populations have come to be a focus of qualitative research, particularly for those examining oppressive social structures, such as critical researchers. Researchers working with marginalized populations should be acutely aware of the political nature of their research and seek to minimize the power differentials. Action and participatory research methods have been identified as offering the most promise to dissolve traditional research hierarchies.