Towards Understanding Situations of Social Exclusion

Abstract

This chapter traces the emergence of the concept of ‘social exclusion’ in political and academic discourse through an exploration of what C. Wright Mills would call ‘private troubles’ and ‘public issues’ of contemporary social life. The actuality of distributional and relational concerns of social exclusion such as income and citizenship are embedded within complex social and cultural formations through which they attain meaning for actors in different social situations. The advantage of action-oriented approach is that it moves beyond various approaches to social exclusion at the levels of citizenship, employment and so on and starts to address belonging, trust, accessibility and agency, and the meanings of social exclusion as it materialises in specific social situations. Social exclusion implies that actors and groups are somehow excluded from some institutions in society. The roles of institutions in society need to be perceived as legitimate and trustworthy by actors.