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Rutgers University
Trubetzkoynoted that one item of a pair is always actively highlighted with a markwhile
the otherremainspassively defined by its absence of the mark.Linguistshave since applied
the concepts of the markedand the unmarkedto grammarand lexicon as well as phonol-
ogy.2 In lexical pairs, the unmarkeditem has the ambiguousposition of representingeither
the generic category as a whole or the specific opposite of the markedmember(Greenberg
1966:26). In the English language, for example, the unmarkedterm "man"can represent
humankindgenericallyor it can indicatethe oppositeof woman.The markedterm"woman,"
however, never refers to humans writ large. The marked item is always more narrowly
specified and heavily articulatedthan the unmarked.
The distinction between markedand unmarkedelements is as heuristicallyvaluable for
analyzing social contrastsas it is for looking at linguistic ones.3 I use the concept of "social
markedness"to refer to the ways social actors actively perceive one side of a contrast
while ignoring the other side as epistemologically unproblematic(Brekhus 1996:500).
Durkheim's ([1912]1965) initial distinctionbetween the sacred and the profanerepresents
an early effort to understandcognitive asymmetryin our perceptionof social phenomena.
Like Durkheim's concept of the sacred, the markedrepresentsextremes that stand out as
either remarkably"above"or remarkably"below"the norm.The unmarkedrepresentsthe
vast expanse of social reality that is passively defined as unremarkable,socially generic,
and profane (Brekhus 1996:502).
The linguistic contrastbetween the markedand the unmarkedroughly parallels visual
psychology's distinction between "figure"and "ground."Gestalt psychologists have dem-
onstratedthat we actively foregroundthe figure of visual contrastswithout perceiving its
ground.4While gestalt psychologists look specifically at visual perception,the same prin-
ciples are useful in analyzing nonvisual forms of delineation as well.5 Just as we visually
highlight some physical contours and ignore others, we mentally foregroundcertain con-
tours of our social landscape while disattending others. We perceive some elements of
social life as markedfigures while most of our social landscapeblends into the unmarked
background.Behaviors, attitudes, categories, identities, social spaces, and environments
that are considered socially extreme are marked(or actively highlighted), while those that
are regardedas socially neutralremain unmarked(or taken for granted).
Language plays a key role in the social marking process. The very act of naming or
labeling a category simultaneously constructs and foregrounds that category. When we
linguistically mark something we are essentially qualifying it as a "specialized"form that
we must distinguish from its more "generic"form. The terms Chinese American, Funda-
mentalist Protestant,Reagan Democrat, and Welfare Mother all imply, for instance, that
the person is not really the generic ("typical")form of American, or Protestant,or Demo-
crat, or mother.By making a compoundform for a special type we also passively construct
the normativecase or generic type by its absence of any linguistic qualifiers.
In ideal-typical cases of unmarkednesswe fail to even have a name for the default
portion of the continuum.For instance, individualsmay apply the label "virgin"to socially
markthose who have exceptionally little sex by conventional moral or culturalstandards,
or the labels "slut"or "stud"to those who have too much sex, but they have no explicit
culturallabels from which to choose for those who have socially unexceptionalamountsof
sex (Brekhus 1996:502-3). Likewise, dates to which we give a specific name become
foregroundedas "exceptional"relative to other times. In the United States, "Valentine's
Day," "St. Patrick's Day," "Halloween,"and "Fridaythe 13th"are far more foregrounded
than the numerouscalendardates that we do not markwith a culturallabel.
The unmarkedgenerally remainsunnamedand unaccentedeven in social research.The
study of collective behavior,for instance, looks at labeled behaviors, such as "riots"and
"panics,"but rarely analyzes those unnamedforms of collective behavior that constitute
the vast majorityof ordinaryhumantraffic (see Goffman 1963:4). Similarly,the study of
sexual categories looks at culturallynamed groups, such as "swingers"and "sadomasoch-
ists," but not their unnamed counterparts,such as "maritalloyalists," and "vanilla sex
practitioners."6Investigationsof social life often begin with that which is already visible
and named because of its "exoticness" or its heavily articulatedmoral and political sig-
nificance. Although there are many deviancejournalsto analyze socially unusualbehavior
there is no Journal of MundaneBehavior to explicitly analyze conformity.
Within American sociology a de facto tradition in the sociology of the marked has
formed. Areas such as the sociology of deviance, identity,urbansociology, ethnography,
women's studies, gay and lesbian studies, and African American studies provide some of
the main contributionsto a body of work thatcan be defined as a "sociology of the marked."
In this article, I propose a method for deliberatelyfocusing on the unmarkedelements of
social life. I formalize the heuristic concepts of the marked and the unmarkedas basic
features of social perception. Using examples from sociological research, I then suggest
that some of our research unintentionally reproduces and reinforces common cultural
stereotypes by overemphasizing morally critical or factually exotic social phenomena.
Finally, showing the analytical costs of this problem, I outline methodological strategies
for developing an explicit traditionin the sociology of the unmarkedthat attends to the
least visible features of social reality.
while the center remains unmarkedas socially generic. Examples of the binary model in
contemporaryAmerican society include gender identity (where women are marked and
men areunmarked),hearing(wherethe "hearingimpaired"aremarkedandthe "unimpaired"
are not), and handedness(where left-handersare markedand right-handersare not). Exam-
ples of the trinarymodel include intelligence, where the "dull" and "bright"are marked
but the intellectually "average"are not, and morality, where "saints"and "sinners"are
markedbut the morally "average"are not.
Markednessoccurs along several dimensions of social life. For example, morally "infe-
rior" behavior, such as committing a crime, and morally "superior"behavior, such as
rescuing a person from a fire, are both marked;morally neutralbehavior,such as walking
on a city sidewalk, remainsunmarked.With respect to social time, the weekend is marked
while weekdays remain unmarked(see Zerubavel 1985:117-20). Morally "high"spaces,
such as temples, and morally "low" spaces, such as red light districts, are marked,while
morally neutralpublic places are simply treated as "generic public space." And identity
extremes such as "overachiever"and "slacker,"are marked,while those who fall between
the two poles remain unmarked.
Markednessvaries from one context to the next. Where the frequency of the markedis
very low, the intensity of markednesstends to be particularlystrong. On the other hand,
the magnitude of markedness tends to decline as the proportion of the marked relative
to the unmarkedincreases. In fact, if what is typically markedbecomes more common than
the unmarkedthe categories can even be inverted. Such reversals of markednessoccur
across cultures,across time and space, and even within a given culture(Waugh 1982:310).
Reversals of dominantculturalmarkingpatternscommonly occur within subculturalghet-
tos. A heterosexual couple upon entering a gay bar, for example, will discover that they
cannot take their sexual orientationfor grantedas they do in most environments.Likewise,
a civilian who normally does not think about his/her "civilianness"will become aware of
it upon entering a military base.
We separate the marked from the unmarkedthrough a process of "coloring,"figura-
tively painting an entire marked category so that it is representedby its most colorful,
stereotypical images (Brekhus 1996:512). Once missing children became marked as a
social problem, for instance, images of children kidnappedby ruthless strangerscame to
represent the entire problem of missing children even though only a small fraction of
them were abducted by strangers (Best 1987). Likewise the night (a marked time) is
culturally represented as dangerous even though only a few nighttime interactions are
perilous. High daytime rates of farm accidents, household falls, childhood injuries, and
traffic fatalities do not contributeto a similar perceptionthat the day is dangerous.Media
and popular images tend to reinforce markedness by treating stereotypical cases as if
they are representative.In his discussion of drug scares, Reinarman(1994:96) refersto this
phenomenon as the "routinizationof caricature,"wherein media re-craftworst cases into
typical cases making the episodic appear endemic. The "extremetype"8of the chron-
ically addictedcrack fiend, then, comes to representa "typical"crack-user,and the image
of a few violent black inner-city males may come to "color" the category of African
American males generally. The same coloring rarely occurs on the unmarkedside of the
divide. We seldom view white serial killers, such as Jeffrey Dahmerand CharlesManson,
for instance, as reflecting the "sociopathic tendency" of "white culture,"nor do we per-
ceive the pathologies of one drug-free individual as generalizable to the larger set of
"drug-freeindividuals."
EPISTEMOLOGICALASYMMETRYWITHIN SOCIOLOGY
AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
As the sociological imagination often challenges common-sense reality, sociologists are
ideally situatedto contest the conventional asymmetrybetween the way lay actors regard
markedand unmarkedcategories. Much of what we produce in sociology, however, does
not challengelay perceptions.Some researcheven augmentsasymmetrybetweenthe marked
and the unmarked.While conventions such as randomsampling and the use of continuous
variables guard against epistemological asymmetry,other conventions such as selecting
samples or issues to study because they are "morallycritical"or "factuallyexotic" facili-
tate it. Though generally motivated by a humanistic desire to dispel stereotypes, some
social researchersunintentionallyreinforce markednessand form epistemological ghettos
aroundthe markedby makingcategory-specific generalizationsratherthangeneric obser-
vations about social processes. Such ghettos form aroundmorallycritical, socially visible,
or factually exotic populations,spaces, and behaviors.
Re-Marking in Sociology
In discussing the foundationsof what is considered academicallyor journalisticallyinter-
esting, Davis (1971:311) arguesthat a theory is interestingif it standsout from the taken-
for-grantedassumptionsof its audience.AlthoughDavis focuses on the analyticfoundations
of what is interesting, "interestingness"also has empirical and normativefoundations. I
use the term "empiricallyinteresting"to refer to studies that provoke interestbecause they
analyze the uncommon or unusual; studies of revolutions, deviant subcultures,and reli-
gious cults representexamples of such topics. I use the term "morally/politicallyinterest-
ing" to refer to studies that address social or moral problems marked within the larger
culture. I use the term "analyticallyinteresting"to refer to studies that provoke interest
because they producecounterintuitivefindings or uncover "seen but unnoticed"(Garfinkel
1967:36) patterns.I distinguishempiricallyand morally/politicallyinterestingtopics from
analytically interesting ones that are epistemologically novel but not necessarily politi-
cally or ontologically salient.9 Since the origin of what is empirically or morally marked
occurs outside sociology, our focus on the "empirically"or "morallyinteresting"tends to
re-markand recapitulateconventional patternsof markedness.
Early on in their socialization American sociology students are taught to think about
sociology in relation to specific social problems. Undergraduatesociology curriculums
generally offer social problems courses well before any formally oriented classes such as
theory or methods. At my own university,survey courses in minority groups and the soci-
ology of women also precede race relations and sociology of gender courses; the sequen-
tial structuringof these courses, thus, encourages students,initially, to view the sociology
of race as the survey of markedracial groups and the sociology of gender as the study of
women (the markedgender category).
The sociological studyof identityfocuses almostexclusively on politically salientdimen-
sions of identity such as race, class, gender, sexual orientation,and ethnicity. Moreover,
we tend to focus only on the marked(socially visible) poles within any dimension. Studies
of racial identity, for instance, focus disproportionatelyon minorities'0 and studies of
sexual identity focus on "homosexuality"far more than"heterosexuality."l The top social
science journal in gender, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, explicitly
identifies the markedcategory in its title, therebyimplicitly reinforcingthe culturalimage
of women as more gendered than men. Because it goes directly to the existing sociocul-
tural and political discourse to analyze identity, researchon identity often reproducesthe
centralityof existing divisions. Ourdisproportionateattentionto women in gender studies,
AfricanAmericans in race studies, and homosexuals in sexuality studies not only re-marks
the culture's magnified focus on these categories, it reproduces the culture's epistemo-
logical blindspotting of unmarked categories. When we select our focus based on the
moral, social, and political concerns of our time, we tacitly reassert existing conventions
of markedness.2
Mills (1943) demonstratedthe dangers of gravitatingto morally visible issues in his
discussion of the professional practice of social pathologists. He showed that because
pathologists studiedimmediatepracticalproblems,theirproblem-specificfocus drew them
away from larger social structures.The consequences of their ghettoized focus was to
reproduce the culture's common-sense ideology that the problems of American society
were a series of random,isolated events requiringindependent,reactive solutions.
One area where social scientists re-markby sampling based on a problems-oriented
approachis in the study of racialized crime. Some studies bracketblack and Latino crimes
into epistemological ghettos thatseparatethem from othercrimes. Race-specific studies of
black and Latino crime treat "blackness"and "Latinoness"as if they alone were causal
variables that explain the unexplained variance in crime rates between blacks or Latinos
and whites. In a recent issue of Social Problems,for instance, Martinez (1996) provides a
regressionanalysis of Latinohomicide. He introducesLatinohomicide as "a largelyunstud-
ied, and generally unexaminedsocial problemin contemporaryU.S. society" and suggests
that "determinantsof Latino killings differ from those for total homicides or other group-
specific killings (e.g., Black, Asian, Native-American)"(p. 142; emphasis added). His
statementimplies thatgeneric explanationsof homicide cannot account for Latino or other
"group-specific"homicides.13Moreover,in omitting white killings from his list of group-
specific homicides, Martinez constructs white homicides as the only patternthat is com-
pletely unnamedand thus apparentlyunaffected by race.
mological ghettos around their subjects when they draw attention to them as a distinct
category worth studying. The very act of targetingandjustifying a populationas nondevi-
ant marks them as deviant.'6 While much work in sociology challenges negative stereo-
types of the marked, it does so by inverting the social value of the mark rather than
reducing its magnitude. Sociologists and journalists who study marginalizedsubcultures
often side with the underdogin presenting an account of their subjects. Championingthe
underdogmaintainsthe strengthof the social mark,disputingonly whetherthe markshould
be positively or negatively valued. Changingthe social value of the markedstill leaves the
unmarkedas the default neutralsetting. Although politically radical, this approachis still
cognitivelyconservativein maintainingthe epistemologicalghettothathighlightsthe marked.
Whether radical or conservative, for instance, studies of members of marked categories
such as African Americans, homosexuals, the poor, women, youth, and the elderly are
rarely generalized to conclusions about "social actors"writ large. Studies of whites, het-
erosexuals, the middle-class, men, and nonelderly adults, by contrast, are routinely ab-
stractedto generic human social relations. In theory, the study of markedpopulations is,
however, no less generalizable to human social behavior as a whole than the study of
unmarkedpopulations.
Colored Extremes: Magnifying the Gap between the Marked and the Unmarked
overlook that bars, gay communities, and tearooms are only the markedareas of lesbian
and gay life. The vast expanse of gay life that occurs outside these loci has not been
representedin such investigations.
Much of queer theory also builds its analysis from the most "empiricallyexotic" cases.
Queer theory borrows the word "queer"from antiassimilationist activist groups (most
notably Queer Nation) to emphasize "queerness"as "a marker of one's distance from
conventional norms in all facets of life, not only the sexual" (Epstein 1994:195, emphasis
added). While queer theorists (e.g., Epstein 1994:197; Sedgwick 1990; Seidman 1994;
Stein and Plummer 1994:185) have rightfully called for greaterattentionto how the mar-
ginal informs the central, queer theory's own celebration and accentuation of "radical
extremes" actually reproduces its status as a segregated theory of the "exotic" and the
"marginal."22As with empirical studies of gay subcultures,political activists and "gender
radicals"dominatequeer theory representationsof lesbian and gay life. Even the very use
of the term "queer"colors gay life by its "extremetype"image, since few outside academia
or activist circles identify with the term or its connotations.23
In going to the most dramaticperformances,the collective body of researchon identity
as presentationreplicates the existing culturalfocus on seeing "specialized"minorities as
fundamentally different from the "generic" majority.Although such studies assert that
identities are socially constructed,their nearly exclusive focus on "politically salient"and
"empiricallyexotic" displays actually reinscribesan image of essential difference between
categories. As only members who cross a certain "presentationalthreshold"of difference
are sampled,we truncatereality by re-markingthe markedcategory as necessarily exoticly
removed from the mainstreamof social life. Thus, ratherthan dispelling stereotypes we
augment the common-sense perception that essential differences separate "exceptional"
minorities from the "unexceptional"majority.
the process of using our right brainto draw the space between structureswe also inadver-
tently drawthe structure.We drawit, however, from an angle thatpreventsus from relying
on our prior expectations.
Within the domain of comedy, marginalizedgroups have employed "reversemarking
humor"to paint majority members as deviant and exotic. Comedian Richard Pryor, for
instance, used to parody "white dialect" by feigning an exaggerated high-brow accent
asking to "please pass the peas" as if it representedthe typical white speech pattern.His
impression is funny because the audience recognizes the imitation as unfairly presenting
all whites under a single exaggerated image; in doing so it implicitly mocks mainstream
"white society's" attemptsto lump blacks under a unified cultural image. By "coloring"
white speech, Pryor's impersonationanalyzes the characterof racial generalizationsfrom
a perspective where group-specific traitsare rarely asserted. Though humoris often over-
looked as an analytical tool for sociologists,25 "reverse marking humor"helps to fore-
ground faulty generalizationsand logical fallacies that may be invisible when applied to
conventionally markedcategories. As such it provides a useful way to problematizethe
taken-for-grantedelements of our world and make them more "visible."
The analytic advantagesof foregroundingthe backgroundspaces of our visual percep-
tion also apply to highlightingthe unmarkedspaces of our social perception.Just as right-
brain drawing allows artists to articulatethe backgroundfeatures of physical space, we
can employ right-brain sociology to give shape to the unmarkedbackgroundfeatures of
social life. Everyday reality, commonplace behaviors, nonglamorous suburbansites of
interaction,and majorityidentities representsocial life's negative space between the more
articulatedexteriors of social problems, deviant acts, urbanpublic spaces, and minority
identities. Highlighting the "negative space" between socially markedphenomenaallows
us to observe social life where it has not already been heavily articulated, typed, and
"colored"within the popularculture.
Suspending empirically interesting and morally critical features from our intellectual
gaze to analyze mundane and politically nonsalient ones offers distinct epistemological
advantages.As we are normallyaccustomedto seeing the "foreground"(or marked)rather
thanthe "background"(or unmarked)elements of social contrasts,drawingthe boundaries
around the unmarkedallows us to view the contrast in a new light. Focusing on social
life's unmarked"negative spaces" offers the methodological advantage of divorcing a
social phenomenon'sanalytic importancefrom its currentpopular importanceor salience.
Moreover, it still allows us to look at the "morallyrelevant"from the perspective of the
negative case. Thus, for instance, a study of knowledge labeled "trivia"tells us not only
what a society considers trivial, but what the society finds highly morally relevant (see
Gatta 1996).
Analytic findings from seemingly morally unimportantissues can still shed light on
highly chargedpolitical and moralissues. Theirpolitically unchargedsettings may even be
an advantage. Studying such morally mundanethings as how we mentally segregate our
home and work lives, for instance, can provide useful analytic insights that also apply to
forms of segregation that are morally significant.26Likewise, the politically noncentral
issue of how we divide sportingevents into weight or age classes can also contributeto our
knowledge of such politically importantprocesses as how we attempt to create a "level
playing field" between men and women in the workplaceor blacks and whites in education
(see Purcell 1996:454).
When we focus only on the morally salient figures of social life we lose the ability to
see analytic comparisonsthat cut across epistemological ghettos. Markingthe exotic and
morally salient segregates the poles from the rest of social life. The tactic of reverse
markingdesegregatesthe poles by foregroundingandarticulatingthe negativespacebetween
the poles. It inverts conventional asymmetry by making the empirically familiar appear
unfamiliar.Reverse markingthus parallels Garfinkel's (1967:35-37) strategy of making
the socially mundane"analyticallyexotic," ratherthan analyzing what already stands out
as morally or socially exotic. As such, his studies of the routine grounds of everyday
activities representthe first explicit attemptto develop a sociology of unmarkedfeatures
of social life.
Frankenberg's(1993) analysis of the social construction of whiteness represents an
importantrecentrecognitionof the advantagesof studyingunmarkedsocial identities. Her
study constructs the borders aroundwhite racial experience and identity by linguistically
markingit with the label "whiteness"(1993:6). By namingwhiteness as a distinct category
she encloses bordersarounda nameless culturalspace and turnsit into "positive negative
space." Whereas most studies of racial identity rearticulateconventionally salient experi-
ences of race, the study of whiteness makes visible the nonsalient racial structuringof
white experience. As race discourse rarely deals with the lived experiences of whites
(except when addressingwhite racism towards other "racialgroups"),whiteness provides
a unique analytic site from which to examine theories of race.
Marking Everything
Reversing markednessitself, however, only inverts ratherthan abolishes the relationship's
asymmetry.Nevertheless, since the unmarkedis less ornamented,reverse markinghelps to
destabilize markednessby compensatingagainst the excessive articulationof the poles; if
we articulateentire continuawith equal weight, therewill be no negative spaces left. Since
markednessis relational,markingeverythingequally simultaneouslyleaves the entirecon-
tinuumunmarked.Within the domain of art, artists such as Escher have rid their paintings
of any backgroundnegative space. Mosaic II, for instance, is designed in such a way that
the light figures simultaneously serve as groundfor the darkfigures, and the darkfigures
serve as groundfor the light ones. As all of Mosaic II's figures are equally highlighted, no
one part of the painting stands apart.
We can similarly highlight each area of social continua so that no negative spaces
remain.While thereis potentiallymuchto learnfrom studyingbothmarkednessandunmark-
edness, the incorporationof knowledge from the markedinto general sociological theory
has been compromised to the extent that we have focused specifically on marked cases
(and on the most salient representativesof those cases) ratherthan on the relationalcon-
nections between the marked and the unmarked. One way to analytically mark entire
social continuaand bring sociologies of the markedinto a "sociology of the unmarked"is
to ornamentthe interactions, boundaries, and relationships between the marked and the
unmarked.Traditionally,the extremes, peripheries, and marginalizedsegments of social
life are more clearly named and articulatedthanthe center and normativesegments; mark-
ing everythingentails fading into and naming the centers of social continua. Social behav-
iors, spaces, attitudes, identities, and categories exist on a continuum, but they appear
discrete when we foregroundand segregate the poles of the continuumwhile treatingthe
negative space between the poles as unmarkedbackdrop.
Withinthe qualitativetradition,the sociology of everyday life has emerged as a subfield
to addresspartsof the interactionalcontinuumthat are conventionally unmarked.The very
fact that the "sociology of everyday life" is "marked"as a specific residual type of inter-
31See Zerubavel (1997:1991) for a general discussion of cognitive worldviews. Also see Davis (1983) on
differentcognitive worldviews about sexuality.
32Lamont(1995:5) suggests, in fact, that while analytically ignored by sociologists, moral standingis the most
salient dimension aroundwhich lower middle-class men (African Americans and Euro-Americansalike) define
their identities and constructsymbolic boundaries.
CONCLUSION
Visual psychologists have demonstratedthat individuals perceptually foreground some
elements of their physical landscape while disattending others. Linguists have shown,
similarly, that one side of a linguistic contrast is marked and clearly delimited while the
other remainsunmarkedand unaccented.I have arguedhere that a parallel situationoccurs
in the way people perceive social contrastsandthatsociological researchsometimesuninten-
tionally reproducesthis.
Sociology is ideally situatedto challenge conventional perceptionsof the social world,
but we sometimes augmentconventionalstereotypesby gravitatingto the most uncommon
or politically salient featuresof social life. Although the unmarkedcomprises a far greater
percentage of the social world, the marked comprises a disproportionateshare of our
representationsof the social world. Since such featuresalreadydrawmore attentionwithin
the general culture we, in effect, re-markand recapitulatecommon-sense representations
of the social world.
We can overcomethis by developinga strongertraditionin the sociology of the unmarked.
I outline three strategies to this end. The first involves reversing conventional patternsof
markednessby namingand foregroundingthe unmarkedas an explicit site for sociological
investigation. This approachtreats unmarkedfeatures as "generalizableattributes"in the
same mannerthat we generalize from markedattributes.Reverse markingshines our epis-
temological lens on the parts of social continuathat generally remainunfocused. Marking
the entire continuum-the second strategy-extends the first strategyby filling in all the
gaps so that each part of the continuum shares the same degree of epistemological orna-
mentationas the heavily articulatedpoles. Markingeverything requiresfurtherornamen-
tation not only of the unmarkedcenter but of the interior segments of the poles that fall
below a visible thresholdof markedness.Finally, we can develop a nomadic perspective
that employs heuristic categorizationsthat transcendpopularones to explore topics from
shifting analytic vantage points.
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