Construction Of Otherness Research Articles

Ethnic Identity and Violence in Urban Spaces: Looking Through the Lens of ‘Cultural Conditioning’

In the recent past, the episodes of violence against the Northeast migrants in major metropolitan cities have raised debates on the racial nature of such violence and have drawn scholarly attention. This article maps the experiences of differential treatment and violence among the Northeast migrants in the national capital city and looks into the consequences of such experiences and strategies to cope with various challenges in daily life. It critically examines the experiences through the sociocultural dynamics of the local societies within the city where the ethnic migrants live. It considers the experiential accounts of a sample of 130 Northeast migrants from different urban local cultures in the national capital of India. Data on lived experiences and various perspectives of the Northeast migrants are collected using a mixed-method approach. The article reveals that ethnic identity plays a role in everyday experiences with some sorts of disadvantages. The ‘construction of otherness’ is found to have a disproportionate impact on their day-to-day life. However, there have been perceived positive changes in the ‘perceptual distance’ and inter-group behaviours. Given that most of the experiences of differential treatment and violence among Northeast migrants are located within the context of the local societies in the city and they have everyday encounters for social acceptance, the article argues that the inter-group relationships are exceedingly shaped by the sociocultural orientations of the people in local societies. The article asserts that understanding the violence against a migrant ethnic minority in cosmopolitan cities cannot undermine the role of social and cultural boundaries of urban local societies.

Fortifying the otherness in Montenegrin political discourse

Following the 2020 elections, Montenegro has experienced an upsurge in ‘patriotic’ political activism, largely supported by the party that lost control of the parliament after three decades of uncontested rule. The continuity and uniqueness of the Montenegrin dual identity, where the categories of Serb and Montenegrin are not mutually exclusive, have been undermined by nationalist aspirations to portray such duality as a delusion. This study examined strategies for the construction of otherness in nationalist political discourse following the 2020 elections in Montenegro, based on the assumption that a threatened identity seeks to re-establish itself through the search for difference and otherness. The Discourse Historical Approach provides an analytical framework for examining the explicit and implicit construction of social actors used to reinforce the ingroup-outgroup rift and portray the other as different and pathological.

What we inherit and what we create. Making the case for an interpretive approach to societal cultures

To deal with the omnipresence of otherness in today’s culturally-complex world, Cross-Cultural Management (CCM) investigates the interrelations between culture and management. The most recent research denaturalizes culture to emphasize the construction of otherness as an instrument of power plays. Thus, it refutes the very possibility of vast national cultures, given the cultural diversity found in modern societies. This conceptual article revisits the notion of culture and provides a definition that makes it possible to grasp both what is inherited and what is created in ‘otherness’. It draws upon an interpretive approach to culture which, although still overlooked in English-language research on CCM, has for several decades been developed in France. The socalled Gestion & Société approach posits that the root causes of otherness lie in the diversity of culturally-shared major fears and ideal ways of living together to counteract them. This approach breaks new ground by emphasizing the inherited cultural references underlying the individuals’ sense-making and by acknowledging the individual agency of the stakeholders who use these references to create new intercultural arrangements in cross-cultural encounters at work. A language metaphor is used to show how the inherited part of culture and the part that is created are articulated. Examples of empirical findings illustrate the benefits of this approach to overcome the critical effects of otherness. The value of its contribution to the understanding of otherness is assessed in comparison with other interpretive approaches, and avenues for future research are discussed.

Perceptions and metaphors of patients about epileptic seizures and postictal state in Medellín-Colombia: A qualitative study

IntroductionPWE describe epileptic seizures and the postictal state with the description of experienced symptoms or through metaphorical language. For treating physicians, this metaphoric language may go unnoticed. The purpose of the study is to identify both the real and metaphorical descriptions of epileptic seizures and postictal state referred by PWE from Medellín Colombia. MethodsIt is a qualitative study that uses grounded theory applied in ten semi-structured interviews of PWE from the Metropolitan Area of Medellín, Colombia. Descriptions of epileptic seizures and the postictal state were identified. For their classification into metaphorical and literal characteristics, the texts of “The Living Metaphor” by Paul Riccoeur, “The Illness and its Metaphors – AIDS and its Metaphors” by Susan Sontag, and “Metaphors of Everyday Life” by Lakoff and Johnson were used as references. ResultsTen clinical and fourteen metaphorical descriptions of epileptic seizures were identified. Regarding the postictal state, eight clinical and six metaphorical descriptions were identified. The metaphors were classified into three categories: a. external force b. depreciation and division and c. the absence of continuity (slowness, disconnection). ConclusionMetaphors are frequent in the description of epileptic seizures and can be useful in seizure classification, neuroanatomical localization, and therapeutic approach. Metaphors can be an initial stage in the construction of otherness as a form of identity.

Diversidad y otredad como construcciones político-visuales. Lecturas de vidas desplazadas desde el World Press Photo

This study explores the concept of refuge within the Mediterranean in Southern Europe. The theoretical framework addresses the securitization of borders amidst the neoliberal crisis and reflects upon the meaning of displaced life, with a particular emphasis on the precarity and vulnerability of individuals in transit between the global North and South. A mixed methodology is employed, incorporating elements of philosophy, art, and anthropology, aiming to highlight the political construction of otherness and diversity. The material used consist of artistic representations from the World Press Photo award (2015-2020) which reveal multiculturalism as a disguised and paternalistic form of racism. The study proposes ethical-political contributions that position aesthetics as a Eurocentric construction surrounding the current theme of refuge.

Istinti di socievolezza. Estetica e psicologia morale degli affetti altruistici in Leibniz

The article focuses on Leibniz’s theory of dual access to the innate practical truths developed in the New Essays, on the background of the reconciliation between egoism and altruism he pursues – since his early writings on natural law – through the categories of disinterested love and charity, and the onto-aesthetic implication between harmony and pleasure as well. After reconstructing the meaning and the functions of the argument on the community of brigands that Leibniz addresses against Locke’s conventionalism, the article dwells on the structure of social instincts in human and non-human animals and emphasises the role of the “prick of conscience”, conceived of as a first, affective and pre-rational step in the construction of otherness.
 

Shame on me: the individual whitewash of a social stigma underpinned by language ideologies

Abstract Language ideologies are a powerful way of perpetuating inequalities, as peripheralized speakers who have internalized the lack of legitimacy attributed to them often end up reproducing censure rather than resisting it. Foregrounding the affective dimension, this paper explores the role of shame as a fulcrum articulating the individual with the collective in the perpetuation of linguistic stigma. To do so, it presents excerpts of autobiographies written by university students that reveal the impact of language idealization on the subjectivities of those who, by deviating from the norm, forge subaltern identities. As victims of language shaming are often unaware that their suffering is due to ideologies, but instead blame it on personal failings, rather than challenge the linguistic vigilantes who harass them, they silence themselves. The paper discusses how the inherently social nature of the construction of otherness and stigma is obscured by the individuality of shame and presents an educational intervention with which to scaffold students to overcome language shame.

Lampião no cordel: uma abordagem jusliterária da alteridade

The article presents an approach on the construction of otherness in the Brazilian legal system, from the narrativist theory of law on the jusliterary look of the popular poems under analysis. The study also dialogues with the jurists' theoretical common sense (Warateana category), which enables a critical perspective of the other in the interpretative reality of the rules.

Reorienting the Gaze: Monstrous Bodies in Remediations of Frankenstein

Visual adaptations of the Frankenstein myth highlight the role ocularcentrism and scopic power play. By engaging with the concept of the gaze, this paper analyzes remediations of Mary Shelley’s masterpiece and discusses how visual narratives frame potentially monstrous bodies in order to assimilate or question traditional privileged visions and their construction of otherness, as well as to (re) orient spectators towards recognition of or detachment from the onscreen monster. It will address particularly relevant examples: Edison’s Frankenstein, the YouTube series Frankenstein M.D., Whale’s and Branagh’s iconic remediations, as well as the less known Murders of the Rue Morgue and Frankenhooker. Ultimately, this work will vindicate the role of remediations as an arena within which contemporary imaginaries regarding otherness and who holds the visual and narrative power are either legitimized or challenged.

Construction of Otherness: Links Between Immigration and Crime During the Cambiemos Administration (Argentina, 2015–2019)

In December 2015, the political coalition Cambiemos won the national elections in Argentina, taking the candidate Mauricio Macri to the presidency for a period of four years. One of the recurring topics within public opinion during that time was the explicit and public reference to an alleged link between immigration and crime by administration officials of various kinds. Against this background, I propose to specifically address the ways in which the links between immigration and crime were defined in the political discourses implemented during the Cambiemos administration. The article presents different core categories, reconstructed through discourse analysis: (1) ‘we need to know who is who’; (2) distinction in the types of immigration that arrive in Argentina; (3) tighter controls on the conditions of entry into the country; and (4) crime and migration. In broader terms, and as the argumentative plotline, each of these core categories relates to the Cambiemos initiatives to manage ethnic and cultural diversity: identify, select, control and criminalise.

“Otherness”, otherism, discrimination, and health inequalities: entrenched challenges for modern psychiatric disciplines

Identity is a complex concept that can be informed by various factors, involving biological, psychological, experiential, and social influences. Specifically, one’s social identity refers to the ways in which individuals can adopt attributes from established collective categories, like cultural identities, ethnic identities, gender identities, and class identities, amongst others. Social identity can encompass unique and diverse interactions at an individual level, known as micro-identities, that may be selectively expressed, hidden, or downplayed, contingent on distinct sociocultural settings. However, the formation of social identity is recurrently defined in opposition to perceptions of the Other, which can entail adverse paradigms of marginalisation, stigma, and discrimination. Although this theory of Otherness has been developed across different fields, particularly sociology, it may be important in psychiatric contexts as it can engender inherent risk factors and mental health inequalities. Consequently, this paper seeks to bring attention towards these issues, exploring the construction of Otherness and its detrimental outcomes for psychiatry, such as systemic discrimination and disparities in therapeutic support, alongside recommended initiatives to mitigate against the effects of Otherness. This may require multifactorial approaches that include cultural competency training, interventions informed by micro-identities and intersectionality, patient advocacy, and structural changes to mental health policy.

La construction de l’altérité par la « définition naturelle » Enjeux linguistiques, culturels et identitaires du discours missionnaire

Through his works, Celestino Testore gave an important reflection on the construction of otherness by the “natural definition”. The missionary discourse ends up confirming or invalidating, through the play of representation, the identity of the young protagonists. In order to understand the linguistic and cultural issues of missionary discourse in a given intercultural context, this article is centred on a corpus of 23 missionary narratives for youth. These texts – published in Quebec and edited by l’Apostolat de la Presse – present a classical ethnological approach for which the identification of the Other results in a closed network of meanings that use comparisons based on an ethno-centred perspective. However, in this kind of discourse we can also observe some unexpected signs of interculturality.

Eritreja, moja dežela

The article analyses the representation of distant others in Eritreja photoreporatge, which ran for ten consecutive issues in Mladina magazine between August and November 1988 and is considered to be the most extensive photoreportage ever to be published in Slovene printed media. Multimodal framing analysis, complemented by semi-structured interviews with authors, is applied to examine verbal and visual strategies for construction of otherness. Eritreja’s divergence from dominant news topics on the subject (famine and war) and its positive representations of the distant other are traced to photoreportage’s resonance within domestic political agenda (Slovene struggle against Yugoslav centralisation) and Mladina’s editorial policy (advocating freedom of speech via attacks on Yugoslavia’s public taboo topics).

Understanding the Construction of Otherness in Harijan Community in Bangladesh

Otherness sees the world as divided into mutually excluding opposites. It is built through subjective perceptions and cultural practices in society on which, human beings are remade and separated from each other always based on their own experiences. This was a cross-sectional study, applied a qualitative approach to explore how cultural otherness was produced and practiced within the Harijan community. The studied population live in a separate geographical location due to their traditional occupation. Their accommodation and occupation made them others in the society. They have limited access to public places, shops and restaurants, barbershops, playgrounds, movie theatres, burial grounds, social gatherings, temples, music concerts and cultural events. This subordinated social position has also made them others within their sociocultural context. The identity of the Harijan as ‘others’ has been categorised and identified through the existing sociocultural context they live in. This identity is being perpetuated from one generation to another.

Acquisitions as programs: The role of sensemaking and sensegiving

The intersection of program management and acquisition research remains undeveloped. Within both research domains there is limited recognition of how senior and project managers frame change and influence the meaning construction of others in complex and ambiguous situations. We investigate how sensemaking and sensegiving alternate within an acquisition program during ten Indian acquisitions. Our resulting model highlights how sensemaking and sensegiving interface and blend across different projects (e.g., functional or task-based) to build shared meaning and maintain business continuity. Viewing acquisitions as programs, consisting of interrelated projects, disentangles how senior managers create shared meaning. Additional implications for research and management practice are identified.

Who is the Other?

Abstract: In this contribution I discuss how the (re)production of Otherness can be problematised presenting two practical examples. The first considers the encounter of Otherness from the perspective of another language: by shuffling individual and collective representations, such an experience reveals how Otherness is a relative and situated construct determined by asymmetrical power relations. Drawing from my long practice as a foreign language teacher, I briefly present an activity that I developed in a multicultural high school in Italy in an urban context to show how the construction of Otherness can be problematised starting by challenging the usual perspective from which we look at ourselves. The second example discusses the international project of the online dictionary In Other Words. A Contextualized Dictionary to Problematize Otherness (www.iowdictionary.org) that analyses, problematises and subverts discriminating language through the critical and creative analysis of keywords by using pieces of literature, works of art, cartoons, videos, as well as by deconstructing derogatory visual and rhetorical strategies. The actual practices here presented as examples are grounded in several theoretical and critical perspectives, further evidence that practices and theories are not separate entities, but they rather nurture each other since it is precisely the dialogue between thought and action that shapes human experience, fostering awareness and responsibility for our common world (Arendt 1958/1998). [1] Keywords: otherness, another language, discriminating language, stereotypes, asymmetrical power relations, visual and rhetorical strategies.

Monumental Management, Landscape Iconography and the “Muslim Other” in Interwar Greece

This paper focuses on the treatment of historical Islamic buildings in interwar Greece so as to investigate how the notion of Muslim Otherness is (re)produced through practices dealing with monumental management and the iconography of landscape. After the Population Exchange between Greece and Turkey (1924) a preservation initiative for Islamic architecture was launched, yet this clashed with the fact that former Muslim real estate was a financial asset in the implementation of the Exchange. Focusing on the case of Crete, the paper discusses the official and social negotiations that emerged, in this context, over the creation of an otherized heritage. It analyses the means used to re-signify Islamic cultural markers as part of the state’s monumental iconography, but also as historical and mnemonic indicators within changing cityscapes, showing how these means (re)produced a view of Muslims as an historical alterity in the Greek territory. The paper also explores the public effect triggered by such visual prompts, in relation to dominant conceptions of national and local identity. Reflecting on the entanglement between the alterity of the historical marker and that of religious / cultural difference, the paper discusses how discursive constructions of Otherness relate to claims on space and place, elucidating socio-political aspects of the making of the historic landscape.

The affective construction of others’ experience: A cross-cultural comparison of youth's responses to a film about the Uruguayan dictatorship

Popular culture connects us to people who have other histories and cultures. This qualitative study aims to analyze how the representation of others’ suffering in films affects youths’ empathy towards others different from them in terms of generation and cultural distance. We explore how empathy is expressed as semiotic processes of feelings and meanings in a contrastive cross-cultural case study. Using data collected from two college level language classrooms in two different countries (Uruguay and Chile) from two groups (one of regular university students and one of study abroad students), we contrast youths’ responses to a film about violations of human rights during the Uruguayan military dictatorship (Migas de Pan, 2016). The film's representation of the violation of human rights experienced by young people during the dictatorship enables audiences to identify with the protagonist in spite of the temporal and cultural distance that separates them. Our findings suggest that the semiotic construction of feelings distinguishes the degree and intensity of youths’ understanding of others’ experiences. The conclusion discusses how personal trajectories and sociocultural identities influence the meaning making process of past experiences. Finally, we explore possible educational implications of these findings.

The role of Inclusionary Othering in Public Health

Abstract Inclusionary Othering has been established in public health literature, in addition to Exclusionary Othering. The concept of Inclusionary Othering was introduced by Mary Canales (2000, 2001, 2010). She developed this term in her doctoral thesis (1998), in which she dealt with the topic of Othering in the context of nursing care. Her conceptualization of Othering focuses primarily on approaches of Symbolic Interactionism. In particular, the theory of role-taking coined by George H. Mead (1962) plays an essential role in the rise of the notion of an ‘inclusive' potential of Othering. Theoretical approaches applied to conceptualize Inclusionary Othering, such as Goffman's stigmatization theory and Mead's theory of role-taking, have been explored in their explanatory power on Othering. Following this, in the context of which Othering emerged, the postcolonial theory was used to discuss whether Othering can have an ‘inclusive' impact in the context of public health. The Symbolic Interactionist approaches analyzed do not use the term Othering. Goffman's stigmatization approach is well suited to explain attribution processes that reduce the Other to a status of deviance. Stereotypical attributions are a necessary component of Othering. Mead's role theory, however, neglects the power asymmetry between the Other and the Non-Other. Accordingly, the hegemonic status of the Non-Other and the structural privileges he or she has remained untouched in the process of role-taking. Moreover, the approach focuses on an interactional level and does not consider the historical, discursive, and structural levels significant for Othering processes in health care settings. Othering already creates exclusion in the construction of Others and therefore cannot have any inclusive effects. In dealing with the consequences of Othering in health care, it is recommended to refer less to inclusion and, instead, to deconstructivist approaches such as critical whiteness.

Otherness, Cloning, and Morality in John Wyndham’s The Midwich Cuckoos (1957)

The British writer John Wyndham (1903–1969) explored societal effects of surprising or mystical events. A paradigmatic example is The Midwich Cuckoos (1957), which portrays identical-looking children born without sexual intercourse. I propose a reading strategy that focuses on the fictional spatial order and analyses how the construction of the children’s otherness interferes with the village’s demarcation. Furthermore, I interpret the mysterious pregnancies as a reference to basic embryo research in the 1950s – cloning. Finally, I scrutinize Wyndham’s negotiation of utilitarianism throughout the novel and his critique of truly utilitarian decisions that are based on constructions of Otherness.