ABSTRACT
The previous chapter demonstrated that the Simmelian ‘classical stranger’ is not an undifferentiated category and that, therefore, its usefulness and heuristic value is far from lost. This chapter explores the work of the Chicago sociologist Robert Park and his contribution to theories of the stranger. Issues to do with identity, the stranger and its relationship to the host are made possible via the concept of hybridity (Papastergiadis, 2000). Park’s work on civilisation and culture and his conceptualisation of the ‘marginal man’ not only allow him to conceive the world theoretically but highlight his important contribution to a social theory of hybridity via the category of the stranger. Park’s spatial analysis, expressed both in terms of his conceptualisation of the urban environment and his understanding of intercultural and interracial interaction, is a key conceptual framework in his oeuvre. Emerging from Park’s distinction between civilisation and culture is the hybrid self, or in Park’s words, the ‘marginal man’. Although Simmel influences Park’s notion of the ‘marginal man’, it is Frederick Teggart’s view of history and Edward B. Reuter’s work on the ‘mulatto’ that allow Park to broaden and deepen his conception of hybridity. I outline the major characteristics of this new personality type and illustrate the extent to which it aligns with some of the characteristics of the ‘classical stranger’. Hence, Park’s work is pivotal because he is one of the first Anglo-American sociologists to link the stranger to the idea of hybridity, a concept that has become increasingly influential in cultural and ethnic studies.
