 Naomi Scheman (1997) examines the ways in which certain dominant forms of normativity necessitate “abjected others” who are required but rendered impossible and unintelligible to normatively privileged selves. Scheman rejects the options of either claiming a place at the center of normalized forms of life (from which one has initially been excluded), or refusing to engage the dominant forms of identity at all (by accepting one's “marginal” status). Instead, Scheman aims to contest the normative center by centralizing those who have been marginalized (126–7). With this in mind, she begins with the assumption that marginalized lives “are lived, and hence livable” (132).