Mainstream and Margins

The goals of the exercise are:

• To assist participants to identify with both marginal and mainstream roles that they play in society.
• To boost awareness of the oppressive characteristics of the mainstream role.
• To gain hope through identifying how they can support social change while in a mainstream role.
• To practice the skills of an ally.

Activist and nonviolence trainer Daniel Hunter has come up with a helpful exercise called Mainstream and Margins. This is great for activist groups because it doesn’t rely on jargon or overly complicated theories, so it can be used in groups with a diversity of viewpoints or education levels. It also overcomes the mistake of presenting relatively static identity characteristics like age, gender, or religion as though they automatically explain group dynamics. Note, though, that the exercise is challenging and so is best done with a skilled facilitator.

No matter how homogeneous a group or an organization believes itself to be, a careful look shows that some characteristics are marginalized. A group known for vigorous and noisy debates has some quiet members. An organization which believes itself to be bureaucratically efficient has a couple of members who would love to cut corners. A solemn and highly disciplined group includes a few who, out of sight, love to party. The mainstream of a group sets the tone, sets the communication style, and gets to have its own preferences accepted by the margins. Awareness of this dynamic creates choice points for organizers and facilitators who may or may not cooperate with the system. …

Rather than viewing oppression as static (i.e. this group is always oppressed), organizers and activists can be aware of the complexities of this unique group. E.g. while society oppresses women in the larger society, an activist group might have a mainstream of women who unintentionally marginalize non-women in the group. …

Thus mainstream/margin invites curiosity and flexibility, asking the question what is going on in this group now. Organizers then make thoughtful choices about when a mainstream needs assistance in recognizing and re-negotiating its relationship with one of its margins. The mainstream is not about numbers—but it is about who has their interest recognized. So, for example, even in a group where most of the group has chronic medical conditions, the norm might be: we don’t acknowledge our conditions. …

Instead of making value judgments about how oblivious the mainstream is, accept it as one accepts the law of gravity. Then go ahead and assist the margins to express themselves and assist the mainstream to hear them.

Instead of a checklist of diversity items to look for—e.g. race, class, gender, sexual orientation—you can look freshly at each group to see how is mainstream behavior playing out.

The exercise, then, is about what is normal and accepted within a group and what is marginalized. All groups will marginalize behaviours and ideas, and that can be beneficial (e.g. respect is mainstream, screaming at each other is marginalized) so long as it’s done with enough communication and space given to know what the margins are and to hear from them. For conversations about the mainstream and margins to go well, groups need to create conditions of enough safety and trust that people feel able and ready to speak up.

Being a Quaker, Being an Activist by Canadian Friends Service Committee, 2023

“Mainstream and Margin,” Training for Change, https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/mainstream-margin

Daniel Hunter, “Mainstream/Margin in Groups: A Practical Approach to AntiOppression Work,” Training for Change, 2009, https://www.trainingforchange.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Mainstream-Margin-in-Groups.pdf