ancient cities

734 Social Exclusion
study the economic resources (income) of people;
researchers must also study how this income can
be used to attain the social objectives and life conditions
held to be necessary. C. J. M. Schuyt, in
the tradition of Sen, argues that the core of social
exclusion is (1) not being allowed to belong to,
(2) not being able to belong to, and (3) not being
willing to belong to the larger society. The first
refers to people who are discriminated or subtly
driven to the margins of society; the second to
people who are unable to belong (e.g., people with
physical or psychological limitations), but also to
people without a good steady job or the ability to
maintain such a job and people without equity. In
the case of people with clear limitations, alienation
is often the consequence (for both the excluded
and the included), whereas the “other” groups are
often blamed for their own position. In both cases,
this increases exclusion and feelings of exclusion;
thus, it is not surprising that many people decide
to cease to belong to. Self-selection and self-
exclusion are often direct results of (a) the experience
of rejection and disapproval; (b) earlier
exclusion by parents, teachers, police, and other
moral gatekeepers; and (c) the exclusion by the
“majority.” Self-exclusion and the process of “othering”
are inherently linked. Social exclusion is an
accumulation of no longer being admitted, no longer
being able to, and no longer being willing to, belong.
For Schuyt, social exclusion has four dimensions:
1. Moral disapproval of people within society that
are different (“otherness”). This leads to putting
these people aside, socially, symbolically, and
often also physically. Moral disapproval can
also be shown by the decommodification (or
recommodification) of social services that are
forced to work according to commercial
principles.
2. People with little economic value. This harsh
economic verdict can often be disguised as a
moral judgment (lazy, undisciplined, unruly) or
as what are actually symptoms of exclusion,
such as lack of education.
3. Low social defensibility of the excluded. On an
individual level this refers to self-respect. On
both the individual and the social level this is
attacked by stigmatization and the other
dimensions of exclusion. On the positive side
this can lead to self-organization and
collectively standing up for mutual interests.
4. Weak legal position. This is not just the formal
legal position of an individual or group, but
also a resultant of the other three dimensions of
social exclusion.
It is the collective configuration of these four
dimensions that constitutes the exclusion of a
group. Exclusion is produced by a system of social
inequality. In general, more inequality leads to more
exclusion. A system with greater inequality usually
ascribes the failure of the system to the excluded
groups instead of to the system itself (blaming the
victim). Thus people get blamed for being unable to
keep up with society, that is, for not having a job, a
house, or a steady relationship. However, because
of the complicated demands of the risk society with
regard to education, comprehension, stamina, and
self-control, the risks have increased. What is
needed, according to Schuyt, is neither a change in
the system nor a change in the excluded groups, but
both: a structural change of social institutions as
well as a strategy aimed at improving the life
chances and conditions of excluded individuals.
Uneven Development
and Social Exclusion
In contrast to traditional conceptualizations of
poverty, the conceptualization of social exclusion
recognizes that people’s living conditions depend
not only on their personal and household resources
but also on the collective resources they can access.
The inclusion of these collective resources in the
analysis also opens up the concept of exclusion to
a more spatially sensitive approach. Social exclusion
includes forms of exclusion other than labor
market exclusion and poverty, such as financial
exclusion and service exclusion. With such a subdivided
conceptualization of social exclusion, it is
also easier to focus on exclusion within other markets
than the labor market.
The emergence of social and financial exclusion
needs to be linked to deeper structural shifts in the
affected economies and societies. Hilary Silver points
to the global economic restructuring since the mid-
1970s and to the emergence of new social divisions
within advanced capitalist societies; these developments
dictate the need for new concepts such as
social exclusion. Social exclusion then be comes an
expression of the new tensions resulting from
the impact of post-Fordist economic accumulation,
based on globalization and the increased