ABSTRACT
Studying marginal regions and marginality calls for a differentiated and dynamic approach that takes the actors themselves into account. People have deliberately chosen a very broad outlook at the theme of marginality. The sectoral approach has permitted people to demonstrate that marginality is not only an economic phenomenon but covers the entire spectrum of human life. There is no final state of marginality, but processes of marginalization and demarginalization follow each other. The inhabitants of a region outsiders would call marginal are not dejected and miserable people but do have an identity of their own, a 'sense of the local environment' and a 'sense of cultural validity and solidarity'. Marginality has also been felt in rural and urban Zimbabwe as a consequence of Economic Structural Adjustment Policy (ESAP) of 1991.
