Marginality, Stress and Ethnic Identification in an Acculturated Aboriginal Community

Abstract

Psychological changes which result from culture contact and social change have been described for many years within a number of theoretical frameworks, among which is the theory of Marginal Man: Persons living in an acculturated Aboriginal (Australian) community were interviewed in an attempt to comprehend the relations among a number of scaled variables involved in this and other theoretical approaches. Measures taken, in addition to psychological marginality itself, were for alienation, social deviance, psychosomatic stress, attitudes to modes of relating to the dominant White society, degree of westernization, personal barriers to interacting with the dominant community, and ethnic identification. A pattern of results emerged which, in part, supported marginality theory, but which also pointed to a pattern involving more marginality, more deviance and more stress for those rejecting the dominant White society. An interpretation of the data, is offered in terms of reaffirmation of traditional values, a phenomenon anticipated by the original formulators of marginality theory, and now well-documented in the anthropological literature. This interpretation is supported by further analyses of the data in relation to indices of acculturation.