A Sociology of the Unmarked: Redirecting Our Focus
Author(s): Wayne Brekhus
Source: Sociological Theory, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Mar., 1998), pp. 34-51
Published by: American Sociological Association
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A Sociology of the Unmarked: Redirecting Our Focus*
WAYNE BREKHUS
Rutgers University
This article suggests thatAmericansociology has developed a de facto traditionin the
sociology of the markedthat devotes greater epistemological attention to "politically
salient" and "ontologicallyuncommon"featuresof social life.Althoughthe "unmarked"
comprises the vast majorityof social life, the "marked"commandsa disproportionate
share of attentionfrom sociologists. Since the marked already draws more attention
within the general culture,social scientists contributeto re-markingand the reproduction of common-sense images of social reality. This has important analytic consequences. This article arguesfor developing a stronger tradition in a sociology of the
unmarkedthat explicitly foregrounds "politically unnoticed" and taken-for-granted
elements of social reality. Threestrategies are proposed towardthis end: (1) reversing
conventional patterns of markedness to foreground what typically remains unnamed
and implicit, (2) markingeverything by filling in all the shades of social continua so
that each shares the same degree of epistemological ornamentation,and (3) developing
an analyticallynomadicperspective that observes social phenomenafrom multiplevantage points.
In 1994 theAmericanSociologicalAssociationawardedits DistinguishedPublicationAward
to Mitchell Duneier's Slim's Table.Duneier (1992) showed that a group of African American restaurantpatronsheld mainstreamsocial values, strongly disapprovedof most deviant activity, and defined their respectability,strong work ethic, and quality friendshipsas
more significant to theiridentity thanbeing AfricanAmerican.ThatDuneier's portrayalof
some African American men as nonstereotypical, mundane, and capable of organizing
their life around issues other than race merited such widespread sociological interest is
itself sociologically interesting.His empirical findings were unique because unextraordinaryimages of AfricanAmericans,thoughontologically prevalent,remainlargely unexamined in media and social science accounts of African American culture. While Duneier
(1992:137-55) exposes this problem as it relates specifically to the sociology of African
Americans,the problemis a generic one that affects many areasof social science research.
Within several areas of American sociology the ontologically unusual attractsdisproportionate epistemological' attentionrelative to its prevalence in social life. This epistemological asymmetry between our treatmentof extraordinary(or marked) phenomena and
ordinary(or unmarked)ones has importantanalytic consequences.
The concept of markednesswas first introducedin linguistics by Nikolaj Trubetzkoy
and RomanJakobsonin the 1930s (see Trubetzkoy1975:162). In studyingphoneme pairs,
*Direct correspondenceto WayneBrekhus,Departmentof Sociology, 54 Joyce KilmerAvenue, Piscataway,NJ
08854-8045, or brekhus@rci.rutgers.edu.I would like to thankEviatarZerubavel,Lee Clarke,Ira Cohen, Richard Phillips, RaphaelAllen, Fuzz Griffiths, KristenPurcell, and Geoffrey Curranfor their invaluable comments
and suggestions on earlierdrafts.Craig Calhounand the anonymousreviewers for Sociological Theorywere also
most helpful. A fellowship from the Sexuality Research Fellowship Programof the Social Science Research
Council (with funding from the Ford Foundation)provided financial supportduring the writing of this article.
'My use of the terms "epistemological"and "ontological"follows in the traditionof "cognitive sociology" (see
Zerubavel 1997). As such, I employ the concepts somewhat differently from their initial use in the traditionof
philosophy. My use of "epistemology,"for instance, refers to culturally and subculturallyspecific ratherthan
universalcategorical structuresof reality.For descriptionsof their use in philosophy, see Hamlyn (1995:242) on
epistemology and Lowe (1995:634) on ontology.
Sociological Theory 16:1 March 1998
? American Sociological Association. 1722 N Street NW, Washington,DC 20036
A SOCIOLOGYOF THE UNMARKED
35
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 phonology.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 demonstratedthat we actively foregroundthe figure of visual contrastswithout perceiving its
ground.4While gestalt psychologists look specifically at visual perception,the same principles 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 contours 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, Fundamentalist 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 Democrat, 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
2See, for instance, Greenberg(1966); Herbert(1986).
3Jakobsonfirst noted the significance of the distinction between the marked and the unmarkedbeyond the
domain of linguistics (see Trubetzkoy 1975:162). Waugh (1982) provides a more extended analysis of their
utility outside linguistics. See also Brekhus (1996) for a discussion of their utility in studying the hierarchical
organizationof social identities.
4See, for instance, Koffka (1935:184-86) and Kohler (1947:202-3).
5See Chapter3 of Zerubavel(1997) for a detaileddiscussion of the relevanceof the terms "figure"and "ground"
to nonvisual, mental acts of focusing.
36
SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY
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 "sadomasochists," 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 significance. 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.
FORMALPROPERTIESOF THE MARKEDAND THE UNMARKED
The basic propertiesof markednessand figure/ground can be translatedfrom linguistics
and visual perceptionto social contrasts.The attributesof social markednesswould include
the following: (1) the markedis heavily articulatedwhile the unmarkedremains unarticulated; (2) as a consequence, the markingprocess exaggeratesthe importanceand distinctiveness of the marked;(3) the markedreceives disproportionateattentionrelative to its
size or frequency,while the unmarkedis rarelyattendedto even thoughit is usually greater;
(4) distinctionswithin the markedtend to be ignored,makingit appearmore homogeneous
than the unmarked;and 5) characteristicsof a markedmemberare generalizedto all members of the markedcategorybut never beyond the category,while attributesof an unmarked
member are either perceived as idiosyncratic to the individual or universal to the human
condition.
Unlike in linguistics, where markinginvolves a binary contrast, sociomental7 perception involves two models of markedness:one model is binary, where the lower tier is
markedas socially extreme and the upper tier remains unmarkedas socially generic; the
other model is trinary,where the lower and upperpoles are both markedas social extremes
6I am referringhere to the dominantcultural discourse aroundnaming categories. Within S&M subcultures
members do label nonsadomasochistsas "vanilla"(see Faderman 1991:252-53; Califia [19791]1983:130), but
this label is not widely recognized outside S&M circles.
7The term "sociomental" connotes cognition that is neither universal nor individual, but intersubjectively
shared by particular societies or collectives. The term was jointly developed by Zerubavel and Chayko (see
Zerubavel 1993). Also see Zerubavel (1997) for a detailed discussion of sociomental perceptionand its importance to studying social cognition.
A SOCIOLOGYOF THE UNMARKED
37
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). Examples 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 "inferior" 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 subculturalghettos. 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,"figuratively 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 chronically 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 perceive the pathologies of one drug-free individual as generalizable to the larger set of
"drug-freeindividuals."
8Iuse the term"extremetype"to referto the most polarizedimages of a markedcategory(see Brekhus1996:512).
38
SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY
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" facilitate it. Though generally motivated by a humanistic desire to dispel stereotypes, some
social researchersunintentionallyreinforce markednessand form epistemological ghettos
aroundthe markedby makingcategory-specific generalizationsratherthangeneric observations 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 journalisticallyinteresting, Davis (1971:311) arguesthat a theory is interestingif it standsout from the takenfor-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 religious cults representexamples of such topics. I use the term "morally/politicallyinteresting" 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 politically 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.
Epistemological Ghettos: Bracketing the Marked from Generic Social Life
Epistemological ghettos form where researcherssegregate conventionally visible samples
or topics from the largerpopulation. Some researchtraditionswithin sociology are more
susceptible to them than others. Since random sampling cuts across categories thereby
mitigating against selection bias, large-scale surveys remain more immune from epistemological ghettos than do ethnographicapproaches.Subfields such as the sociology of
deviance, which explicitly form aroundthe empiricallyunusual,augmentepistemological
ghettos more readily thansubfields such as sociology of the family, sociology of work, and
sociology of sport, which cut across both the empirically novel and the empirically mundane; subfields such as social problemsand criminology,which explicitly organizearound
morally salient topics, reinforceghettoized thinkingmore than areas such as the sociology
of everyday life, which cut across both politically "important"and "unimportant"topics.
9AlthoughI distinguishbetween empirically,morally,and analyticallyinterestingstudies for heuristicreasons,
they are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
A SOCIOLOGYOF THE UNMARKED
39
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 sociology of women also precede race relations and sociology of gender courses; the sequential 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 salientdimensions 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 sociocultural 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 epistemological 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 largelyunstudied, and generally unexaminedsocial problemin contemporaryU.S. society" and suggests
that "determinantsof Latino killings differ from those for total homicides or other groupspecific 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 groupspecific homicides, Martinez constructs white homicides as the only patternthat is completely unnamedand thus apparentlyunaffected by race.
'?Forimportantexceptions that problematize"whiteness,"see Frankenberg(1993) and McIntosh (1993).
"For notable exceptions, see Duggan ([1994] 1995:183-84), White (1993), and Katz (1995).
12Individually,of course, some studies in the "sociology of the marked"have produced interesting findings.
The problem is not so much one of individual projects as it is the cumulative overrepresentationof the marked
within entire subfields of research.
3The main finding that "Latino's socioeconomic conditions were consistently linked to homicide" (Martinez
1996:131) is consistent, however, with a generic social inequality explanation.
40
SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY
Martinez argues that because within-groupinequality is highly correlatedwith Latino
homicide it is importantto look at "group-specificsources of violence." From this correlation, he speculates that"a large income gap within the Latinopopulationcreates a milieu
in which a need to vent frustrationat others results, usually at those in the Latino community and with deadly consequences" (ibid). Were within-groupinequality measured for
white homicide rates, a similar correlationwould occur, but criminologists ignore withingroupinequalityamong whites as a causal factor because they regardgeneral inequalityas
the more plausible explanation.'4Some criminologists also posit group-specific explanations for intraracialhomicide among blacks. Comer (1985:76) argues, for instance, that
black-on-black violence results from the collective antagonism blacks feel toward their
own race as a consequence of the historical legacy of slavery.
In their search for group differences, race-specific theorists ghettoize specific intraracial crimes rather than looking for a generic explanation that would explain why all
groups disproportionatelykill within their own race. Implying that minorities must possess racial self-antagonismto commit intraracialcrimes, such theories assume that race is
necessarily a key factor in a perpetrator'sdecision of whom to kill (note, of course, that
white racial self-hatred is never posited as the cause of white-on-white crimes). Groupspecific explanationsmay distortrealityby assertingrace as a key motivatingfactorbehind
intraracialcrimes, when it may not be. A nonghettoizedexplanationmight suggest that a
socially and spatially segregated society such as the United States will producehigh rates
of intraracialcrime because most interactions,includingcriminalinteractions,are between
people of the same race.'5 The compartmentalizationof crime into several race-specific
categories obscures this broaderexplanation.
Generalizing to Marked Attributes: Specific Conclusions vs. Generic Conclusions
The key problem with many category-specific theories is that they are inconsistent in
treatingmarkedand unmarkedtraits as generalizableattributes:Only the markedtraitsof
an individualareregardedas relevantto category-specificgeneralizations.Thus, for example, generalizationsfrom a study of medium-built,poor, mid-aged adults can be used to
make generalizations about the broader population of "poor"people but not about the
broaderpopulationof "mesomorphs"or "mid-agedadults."But it is only a social logic and
not a naturallogic that allows us to see one's "poorness"as more generalizable than the
otherattributes.Althoughevery individualpossesses a combinationof markedandunmarked
traits we simply disattendto their unmarkedcharacteristicsand generalize as though only
their markedones mattered.When generalizing we tend to view the actions of unmarked
membersas reflecting universallyon humansocial actors or specifically on themselves as
individuals, but not as representingtheir unmarkedsocial category.As only markedtraits
of a particularindividual, space, or phenomenon appearrelevant for making generalizations to a specific class of events, we are more likely to make category-specific generalizationsaboutdeviantsthannondeviants,markedurbanpublic spaces thanunmarkedspaces,
minoritygroups than majoritygroups, and morally salient than politically invisible issues.
In makinggroup-specific observationsabout social categories, such researchimplicitly
redefines unmarkedmembers as the default generic case. Although they may offer explanations intended to challenge stereotypes, sociologists cannot avoid augmenting episte14Martinez'sfindings that Latino killings are influenced by within-group inequality is compared to black
killings that are influenced more by intergroupinequality with whites than by intragroupinequality between
blacks. Both theories imply that membersof minoritygroupsreferencetheirown inequalityin relationto specific
racial groups ratherthan to other humans, generally.
15Fora related argument,see Covington (1995:553-54).
A SOCIOLOGYOF THE UNMARKED
41
mological ghettos around their subjects when they draw attention to them as a distinct
category worth studying. The very act of targetingandjustifying a populationas nondeviant marks them as deviant.'6 While much work in sociology challenges negative stereotypes 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, heterosexuals, the middle-class, men, and nonelderly adults, by contrast, are routinely abstractedto 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
Many sociologists of the markedcontributeto markednessnot only by targetingmarked
categories, but by finding the most visible representativesof the category.That is, they not
only bracketthe "marked,"they enhance the mental fault line between the markedand the
unmarkedby going to the extreme ratherthan to the interioror more ambiguousexamples
of the marked. Studies of youth culture, for instance, focus primarilyon "rebellious"or
"delinquent"adolescents who most resemble dominant representationsof youth as an
oppositional category (e.g. Gaines 1990; Weinstein 1991). Conformist,conservative teenagers rarely find themselves representedin social science portrayalsof "youthculture."
In interactionistresearch,identity is viewed as expressive and performative.Ethnographers and theorists of identity, thus, typically focus on areas where identity presentations
are most visible. As a result, only members of a marked identity who exceed a certain
presentational thresholdof difference are sampled.We typically observe the extremetypes
of deviants, minorities, and other marked categories (the visible "tips of the iceberg")
while disattendingthe less visible "types"that remain beneath the surface of public and
political discourse. The sociology of deviance, for instance, focuses on the most dramatic
and popularlyrecognized forms of deviance (Liazos 1972). Similarly, dramaticpresentations such as drag, gay macho, queer activism among homosexuals, or "street tough"
presentations among African American males receive far more scholarly attention than
"uninteresting"representativesof the categories "gay" or "black."Descriptive studies of
"deviant"or minority identities tend to sample the most dynamic representationsof the
category. Thus they not only, in effect, sample the dependent variable but they sample a
restrictedrange of the dependentvariable.
Restriction of range, or "truncationbias," is a problem typically discussed within the
tradition of quantitative research.'7 Truncationbias is often a problem for quantitative
studies because some range of the desired population will be excluded if one can only
attain access to observations that fall above a given threshold of visibility. But a similar
"truncationbias" occurs even in researchwhere statisticalproceduresare not used. In his
'6See Liazos's (1972) discussion of how the sociology of deviance reinforcesconventional perceptionsof who
is "deviant."
17Forsuch a discussion, see especially Berk and Ray (1982:356).
42
SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY
award-winningethnography,Anderson(1990:60) concludes thatpoorer,uneducatedblacks
have virtually no tangible role models or instructiveagents of social control remainingin
theirneighborhoodsnow thatmiddle-classblacks have fled the innercity. AlthoughAnderson's overall account is sympatheticto his informants,its image of urbanAfrican American communities as lacking role models still conforms to the unfavorable stereotype of
AfricanAmericancommunities that pervades the popularculture.This is a problem since
the very site of his analysis (community conflict and public interactionsin a large city)
selects for individuals more likely to engage in conspicuous forms of display and illegal
activity. Sites such as workplaces, community civic organizations,and churches, where
role-model "types"are more likely to manifest themselves, are largely excluded from his
range of observations. Similarly, studies of hard drug users tend to focus on treatment
populations or the most morally problematicaddicts, thus selecting for individuals who
will reconfirmpublic suspicions that harddrug use necessarily always leads to an endless
spiralof pathology,addiction,and criminality.Individualswho do not fit this image remain
below the threshold of visibility and thus rarely get studied. The public nature of many
ethnographicsites makes it likely that investigations will reflect images of social life that
are alreadythe most conspicuous.
This problemcan be furtherillustratedwith examples from a popularwing of minority
studies such as gay/lesbian/queer studies. Empiricalwork in the sociology of homosexuality focuses disproportionatelyon the most visible urban gay subculturesand contexts.
Most research looks at social movement organizations(e.g., Adam 1987; Gamson 1989,
1995; Jenness 1995), communitiesconfrontingAIDS (e.g., Gagnon 1989), genderradicals
such as drag queens, lesbian separatists, or hypermasculinebody builders,'8 or salient
contexts such as bars, anonymous sex places, pride parades,and gay commercialdistricts
in large urbancenters.19Generalizationsabout "gay culture"as a whole, thus, come from
a restrictedrange of urbanresearchsettings. Consequently,suggestions that gay cultureis
characterizedby social and political activism, a cosmopolitan "gay sensibility" (Bronski
1984), or radical challenges to mainstreamconventions may be heavily skewed by the
urbannatureof the samples chosen. In fact, since unconventionalattitudesand political
activism are independenteffects of "urbanness,"20much of what has been attributedto
"gay culture"may actually reflect urbanculturewrit large. Although many of these urban
studies are useful individual contributions,the collective effect of sampling the most visible gay subculturesand settings is to tacitly reinforce the predominantcultural assumption thathomosexualsarenecessarilyalike andthatall homosexualsarenecessarilyradically
distinct from all heterosexuals.21
Studies of gay culturehave tendedto reassertthe exotica of difference,leaving one with
"the sense that lesbian and gay individualsinhabitcommunitiesthat are completely set off
from the rest of society, that they are members of an altogetherdifferent culture"(Stein
and Plummer 1994:179). Even Stein and Plummer's own assertion, however, that the
sociological study of homosexuality "has turnedto every nook and crannyof lesbian and
gay life: bars, communities . . . tearooms and the like" (ibid., emphasis mine) seems to
18See,forexample, Levine (1992, 1990) and Humphries(1985) on "gay machos,"Faderman(1991:215-45) on
lesbian separatists,and Tyler (1991) and Newton (1972) on drag and female impersonation.
19See especially Humphries (1970) on anonymous sex places, Levine (1979) on commercial districts, and
Herrell (1992) on pride parades.
2?SeeFischer's (1975) explanationof the social effects of urbanism.He argues, for instance, that urbanismis
a variable that creates intensified deviations from the norm independentof other demographicvariables.
21SeeConnell's (1995:143-63; 1992) analysis of "very straightgays" in Australiafor a rare empirical study
that samples less visible representationsof gay lives. That Connell's informantsbelieved their own conservative
behaviors were "atypical"of homosexuals and thereforeunique to Australiangays shows that even some homosexuals assume that most gays are stereotypically so. In my own research (Brekhus, forthcoming), similarly
"straightgays" also believe their conservatism is atypical and thereforeunique to suburbangays.
A SOCIOLOGYOF THE UNMARKED
43
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 marginal 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.
RESOLVINGTHE PROBLEM:A SOCIOLOGYOF THE UNMARKED
Reversing Markedness: Problematizing Social Life's Unmarked Spaces
We can reverse any markedness relationship by explicitly foregroundingthat which is
typically unmarked.I refer to reverse markingas an explicit strategyfor foregroundingthe
unmarkedas though it were unusual and ignoring the markedas though it were mundane.
This tactic has been developed within domains such as art, architecture,and humor.
Architecturalplanning, for instance, has devised strategiesfor viewing the background
space between articulatedstructures.Whereas architectshad once treated space between
structuresas a shapeless backgroundupon which objects simply exist, they now perceive
that space as having its own shape. Within architecturethis conception, whereby the void
between structuresis articulatedas a positive shape with as much form as the structures
themselves, is referredto as "positive negative space" (Kern 1983:153). Similarly, some
art students are taught to use the right side of their brain to explore the negative space
between physical structuresas if the space itself was a structure.24Edwards,for instance,
teaches artists to gaze at a chair until they can imagine that the chair has disappeared,
leaving the spaces within and aroundit intact. She argues that "the left brain, having no
equivalent name or category for a negative space, stops intrudingwith what it knows about
chairs, and lets the right braintake over" (Edwards 1979:106, emphasis in the original). In
22See, for instance, Martin's (1994:123) critique of queer theory's romantic celebration of "queerness"and
"radicalanti-normativity."
23See, for instance, Bawer's (1993:14) assertion that the word "queer"is favored by only a few gay activists
and academics, while the majorityof gays dislike the term.
24See Edwards(1979:97-113). Also see Ehrenzweig (1975:28).
44
SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY
the process of using our right brainto draw the space between structureswe also inadvertently 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 overlooked as an analytical tool for sociologists,25 "reverse marking humor"helps to foreground 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 perception also apply to highlightingthe unmarkedspaces of our social perception.Just as rightbrain 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).
25See Davis (1993) for a notable exception.
26See,for instance,Nippert-Eng's(1996:xi-xv, 277-92) discussionof how understandingthe boundariesbetween
"home" and "work"can contribute to a general understandingof social boundaries, including those that are
highly morally relevant.
A SOCIOLOGYOF THE UNMARKED
45
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 experiences 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 entirecontinuumunmarked.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 studyingbothmarkednessandunmarkedness, 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 relationalconnections 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; marking everythingentails fading into and naming the centers of social continua. Social behaviors, 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-
46
SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY
actionist sociology suggests, however, that we give greaterepistemological weight to the
study of extraordinaryinteractions.The vast majorityof social interactionthat is neither
exotic nor morally salient is, in effect, reducedto the epistemological weight of a specialized subfield.
Goffman's (1963) Behavior in Public Places representsone of sociology's more concerted efforts to markan entirecontinuum.In contrastto studies thatfocus only on "empirically unusual"(or deviant)publicbehaviors,Goffmanforegroundsthe unremarkedelements
of routine public interactions.He names these backgroundfeatures, drawing attentionto
them as distinct topics of study.27Goffman addresses both "uncivil attention"such as
"hate stares" (p. 83) and "civil inattention"(pp. 84-88). Although studying hate stares
may appearto have greatermoralimportance,Goffmangives more epistemological weight
to the seemingly less imperativecase of civil inattention.Yet while civil inattentionmay
be less socially or morally salient thanhate staresit is a far more abundantfeatureof social
interactions.By not privileging more salient behaviors, Goffman provides insights about
our everyday interactionsthat might have been obscuredhad he focused only on extreme
forms of interactionsuch as "uncivil attention"or "crowdpanics."
Other areas of sociological inquiry have only just begun to ornamentthe background
spaces of theirrespective continua.The sociology of space (urbansociology), for instance,
has had a long-standingtraditionof focusing on the most interestingand morally salient
spaces of social life. With its origins in the Chicago school, initial studies focused almost
exclusively on expressive urban settings. Even today the sociological study of space is
usually named by one of its marked elements, such as "urbansociology," rather than
generically as "spatial sociology." Until 1987 the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography
was titled UrbanLife, implying that social life worth studyingwas necessarily urban.The
sociological studyof space has focused primarilyon how spatialrelationsaffect urbanpublic life andnoton how theyinfluenceotherdomainssuchas the suburbs.Baumgartner's (1988)
Moral Orderof the Suburb,which looks at the moralboundariesof a suburbancommunity,
representsan effort within the sociology of space to begin markingsuburbanresidential
elements of the spatial continuumwith the same weight that we markurbanones.
We can fade into and close the large gap between the unmarkedcenter and the polar
extremetypes of markednessby ornamentingthe "interiortypes"of any markedelement.
While extremetypesrepresentthe most clear-cut outer pole of a markedcategory, interiortypes representthe inner areasthat fall below the presentationalthresholdof difference.
As interiortypesdo not fit the stereotypethey are often markedas a "special type" within
the marked category. Domestic violence, for instance, is marked as unique within the
category violence; date rapeis markedas a special kind of rape;corporatecrime is marked
as an unusualbreed of crime; and suburbangangs are markedas a peculiar type of gang.
The formal effect of assigning markednesswithin an already markedcategory is akin to
multiplyingtwo negative numbers.Markingviolence as "domestic,"for instance,qualifies
the term "violence,"making it appearas if it is not quite a "real"form of violence. Likewise marking"suburban"gangs qualifies the term "gang,"makingit appearas thoughthey
are less real than other gangs. It is interesting to note that the only academic book on
suburban gangs is entitled Wannabe: Gangs in Suburbs and Schools (Monti 1994), imply-
ing that suburbangangs are not really "full-fledged"gangs.28
27As he foregroundsunmarkedpublic behaviors, Goffman's approachcan also be viewed as an example of
reverse marking.
28Similarly,authoritiesin the small city of Davenport, Iowa, referredto local gang members as "wannabees"
(Cooper 1994) because they were mostly white and did not matchthe extreme public image of L.A.'s Bloods and
Crips; ironically, the "wannabe"label stuck even though Davenport's gangs were responsible for 140 drive-by
shootings in 1993, a high rate per capita for a metro-areaof only 200,000 people (1994:53).
A SOCIOLOGYOF THE UNMARKED
47
Focusing on the inevitably more ambiguousinteriorratherthan the colored extremes of
the markedhelps to outline the contours of the unmarked.In Brekhus (forthcoming), for
instance, as informants position themselves closer to the unmarked"generic" suburban
mainstreamalong "daily lifestyle," "gender presentation,"and "social values" continua
thanto any presumed"queer-specific"or "gay-specific"poles of such continua,they shade
into the conventional"mentalgap"(see Zerubavel1991:21-28) thatseparates"straight"from
"gay."29When we highlight the outerextremes of the continuumwe do little to enclose the
space aroundthe center.Accenting more "marginal"instances of markednessallows us to
shade into the center, ornamentingthe bordersthat separatethe unmarkedand the marked.
Developing an Analytically Nomadic Perspective
A nomadic perspective entails shifting to several different analytic vantage points from
which to view something. In place of observing issues from a single fixed cultural viewpoint we can observe them from multiple perspectives, combining elements from each. In
art, for instance, cubism arose as an analytically nomadic challenge to the idea that paintings mustbe viewed fromessentially one space from one point of view (see Kern 1983:141).
Instead of using one vantage point, cubists took a composite from multiple points and
fused them into one representation; in Still Life with a Basket of Apples, for instance,
Cezanne combines different perspectives of apples from multiple sides into a single new
perspective from which to view the basket. For Cezanne one's perceptionvaries dramatically with small shifts in standpoint.30
Sociological analyses can benefit from a similar willingness of researchers to shift
away from a fixed standpointto view their topic from multiple discrete vantage points.
Lemert's (1996:385) suggestion that "anintellectual should be more like Marco Polo, less
like Robinson Crusoe-always moving never quite settling in" reflects the spirit of the
nomadic approach.Changing analytic perspectives allows for views of differentlayers of
social phenomenathat are visible from some vantage points while hidden from others.
Sociologists have long recognized the advantagesof different types of social mobility
in analyzing social phenomena.Sorokin (1959:509) demonstrates,for instance, that social
mobility or social shifting opens up different "mentalvistas" for individuals because they
obtain a knowledge of the manner of life from separate social categories. Nonmobile
persons, for Sorokin, are doomed to view the world througha limited social lens because
their permanentposition does not allow them to perceive things that can only be viewed
from shifting to an alternatesocial standpoint.Simmel (1950:402-8), similarly,arguesthat
socially nomadic individuals (or "strangers")occupy unique structuralpositions that allow
them to see patternsthatmay be invisible to nonmobile culturalinsiders.Although Sorokin
and Simmel focus specifically on instances where social nomadismforces us to see things
from differentmental vistas, analytic nomadismdoes not necessarily requireus to undergo
changes in our permanentsocial statuses. As Said (1993:63, quoted in Lemert 1996:385)
suggests: "Even if one is not an actual immigrantor expatriate,it is still possible to think
as one, to imagine and investigate in spite of barriers,and always to move away from the
centralizing authoritiesto the margins, where you see things that are lost on minds that
have never traveled beyond the conventional and the comfortable."
Davis (1983:246) makes a similarcall for social researchersto cast themselves off from
their social moorings to explore issues from competing worldviews. His researchon erotic
reality offers a paradigmaticexample of this approach for he, himself, takes the "ero29Myinformantsshare the markedcategory of "gay" along with multiple unmarkedcategories such as "suburban,""male,""socially moderate,""white,"etc.
30See Kern (1983:142).
48
SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY
tinaut's"voyage. Davis looks at sexuality from three distinct epistemological worldviews
(Gnosticism, Naturalism,and Jehovanism). In doing so he shifts back and forth among
three vantage points along the sexual worldview continuum. Like the cubist artist, he
combines insights from each angle to paint a picture of erotic reality that would not be
visible from any one point along the spectrum. Davis uses the different worldviews to
show that culturaldisputes over sexuality are primarilya dispute over what temporalpoint
of sexuality defines the very essence of the sexual act; for the Gnostic sex comes in the
preorgasmicbeginning of sex (power); for the Naturalistit is the orgasmic middle (pleasure); and for the Jehovanistit is the postorgasmicending (procreation)(Davis 1983:24445). Such multiperspectivalshifting allows us to develop analytic categorizations that
articulatecompeting layers of social phenomena.
A sociology of the unmarkedneed not, therefore, abandon research within socially
marked groups. When studying identity, for example, sociologists of the unmarkedcan
analyze the ways individuals within socially markedcategories employ and display their
unmarkedfeatures ratherthan only the way they display their markedones. Foregrounding, for instance, the ways that white women reflect their unmarkedracial identity as well
as their markedgenderidentity (see Frankenberg1993), or the ways that white, masculine,
middle-class, suburbangay men reflect their unmarkedstatuses as well as their marked
sexual orientation(see Brekhus, forthcoming) allows us to uncover the ways people exercise their "seen but unnoticed"identities as well as their salient ones. Studying how individuals negotiate their combinationsof markedand unmarkedcharacteristicsallows us to
shift to different vantage points along the figure/ground relationship.
Research within socially markedcategories, thus, can contributeto a sociology of the
unmarkedwhen subjects are not defined only by their most visible category memberships.
One way to deghettoize the markedis to generalize conclusions aboutmarkedmembersto
humanrelations generally,ratherthan to a specific "type"of humanity.Goffman's (1959)
Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, for instance, drew upon his observations of Shetland
Islandersnot to emphasize the self-presentationsof Shetlandersbut to make generic analytic conclusions abouthumansocial presentations.Whereasmany ethnographersareintellectually defined by the specific populations they study, no one thinks of Goffman as a
sociologist of Shetlanders.Similarly, although Simmel (1950:402-8) could have written
"The Stranger"aboutthe uniquenessof the EuropeanJewish intellectual,he instead wrote
about the generic structuralrelations of being socially nomadic. Williams's (1995:535)
recent call for sociology to generalize from African American subjects to humanity writ
large representsa contemporaryeffort to deghettoize our treatmentof markedracial categories. Gerson's (1985:xiv) analysis of variationsamong women similarly desegregates
the marked category by showing that women, like men, are a heterogeneous group of
individuals "situatedin variablesocial contexts who bring differingresources and degrees
of power to their situations."Breaking down the asymmetrybetween the markedand the
unmarkedrequires analytic categorizationsthat cross-cut existing bounds of markedness
such that we search for commonalities across different social categories ratherthan necessarily assuming similarity within categories and difference between categories. Thus
ratherthan grouping only along race, class, and gender, social scientists can heuristically
lump people together along less politically salient "identity dimensions" such as shared
"cognitive worldview"31 or "moral self-definition."32Analytically marking less salient
layers of identity brings us closer to markingthe entire continuum.
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.
A SOCIOLOGYOF THE UNMARKED
49
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 researchsometimesunintentionally 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 epistemological 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 ornamentationas the heavily articulatedpoles. Markingeverything requiresfurtherornamentation 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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