Résumé : While the making of marginality and subalternity in historical perspective has attracted increased international academic interest in recent years, historians of nineteenth and twentieth century Belgium seem to have been little influenced by these developments. Belgian scholars have certainly paid attention to the construction of “otherness” and to the marginalisation of social categories on the basis of gender, ethnicity, age, class, respectability and sexual orientation, but they have rarely placed their analyses within precise conceptual and methodological frameworks. This introductory essay aims to reflect on these historiographical trends and their echoes in Belgian history while examining the ways in which explorations of subaltern/marginal categories in late-modern and contemporary contexts – like the ones presented in this special issue – can contribute to spurring on new discussions about Belgian society and the construction of the logics of in/exclusion in a historical perspective.