Alterity

Alterity

• The study of Alterity (i.e.of Otherness) has become recently a very popular branch of knowledge (in anthropology, psychology, comparative literature)

• It attempts to see how a hegemonic culture or gender group views different or subaltern ones as exotic or inferior or just plain alien.

• A groundbreaking study in the field was Edward Said’s Orientalism

The Study of Alterity as a Challenge to Hegemonic Thinking

• Understanding how images of the Other are created and to what purposes they are used challenges idea of the superiority or inferiority of a civilisation.

• It is a way to challenge hegemonic strategies, a liberation movement of the mind)

• It is a consequence of Deconstruction which points out relativity of such concepts as “good” “normal” etc. (theorist Foucault)

• It is the basis for actual and military liberation movements which have achieved the political end to hegemony. (theorist Frantz Fanon)

Detecting examples of Otherness internal to a society

• Others as linguistic groups• Others as physically different

– Handicapped people– Racially different people

• Others as gender groups– Women– Gay and lesbian

• Others as social groups – Foreigners– People of other religions– People distinguished by census or class

Detecting examples of Otherness external to a society

• Other nations

• Other religions

• Especially natives in countries “discovered” by Europeans

How have Others been dealt with?

• Persecution, deportation e.g. genocides, the Shoah, pogroms,

• Enslavement, colonization• Emargination, e.g. ghettoes, apartheid,

exclusion from education, jobs• Victimization, e.g. witch hunts, public

punishments•

Othering through language

• Polarities

• Stereotyping

• Name calling

• Ridiculing linguistic expression of Others

• Ignoring artistic expression of Others

• Imposing literary, artistic canons

• Exoticism

Dealing with the Challenge of Otherness

• Decolonization, reterritorialization, economic aid, challenge to new colonialism

• Liberation movements have achieved the political end to hegemony. (theorist Frantz Fanon)

• Multiculturalism• Political correctness, • New Age, alternative medicine

Dealing with Otherness in Literature

• The critical movement of Deconstruction has taken up this challenge intellectually (a Liberation movement of the mind)

• Breaking up of the canon, • Postcolonial literature, ethnic studies, • Cultural studies, • Feminist studies• Imagological studies