Marginal Economies and Economic Marginality since Antiquity

Central to the workshop is a systematic and historical analysis of marginal figures, things, cultures and fields of knowledge, as well as religious, political, cultural or economical groups, which are considered marginal in relation to the prevailing society.

We will deal with (I.) the crises, processes, events, rites and techniques that are instrumental in producing the marginality of specific persons, things, cultures and fields of knowledge in the first place. (II.) This requires a critical revision of the analysis of space – the relation of centre and periphery, the undecided states of liminality, transition and intermediacy, processes of inclusion and exclusion, of eviction and migration, the spatial configurations of the social, the relation of ergon and parergon. (III.) It is of high interest to analyse the constitutive role and the multiple functions of social, political, technical, discursive, economic and cultural marginality with regard to the dominant culture, economy, language, society, way of life, and to the canonical and prevalent forms of knowledge. (IV.) There is finally the marginal perspective itself – being lost, insignificant, invisible, abandoned, decoupled – that should be examined. This includes the manifold possibilities generated by the marginal perspective as for example in counter-cultures, artful reallocations, cunning aesthetics, sly uses of commodities, subversive practices, irritations, disturbances and disruptions of order and revolutionary movements.

Poster

Program