Marginalization as creative endeavour

Abstract

Creative work is best understood as a process of getting lost. Scholarly work is a creative endeavour. And an endeavour requires total attention. On a superficial level, total attention is a demonstration of scholarly seriousness and discipline. On a deeper level, total attention is a necessary effort for successful scholarship. Yet, do we as scholars see getting lost as a necessary precondition for total attention? The authors whose works are showcased in this special issue of China Information add to our appreciation of marginalization as creative endeavour. They do so by means of scholarship highlighting the creation of marginal existence through the application of labels and locators that stick and shift. They do so, moreover, because of their willingness to share their particular experience of getting lost. That experience includes challenges to professional and personal identity when their own status – whether religious, racial, ethnic, or sexual – is called into question.