Definitions
of Othering
Popular
Definition:
Othering is a way of defining and securing one’s own
positive identity through the stigmatization of an "other."
Whatever the markers of social differentiation that shape the meaning of
"us" and "them," whether they are racial, geographic,
ethnic, economic or ideological, there is always the danger that they will
become the basis for a self-affirmation that depends upon the denigration of the
other group. When a group claims to
be "chosen by God," the danger multiplies, not only for the "unchosen"
other who may be subjected to violence, but for the chosen group itself that is
at risk of being undermined. [In
other words, convenient though othering is as a way of propping up one’s ego,
it has an inherent fragility because it must constantly led be fed by the
illusory inferiority by the Other – and is thus constantly at risk of being
discredited – MU]
Origin
of the Word:
Otherness This is an ambiguous term that originated in the writings of GWF Hegel (1770-1831) and was later developed in the psychoanalysis of Lacan. The other can be associated with the image outside oneself perceived and identified within the Mirror-stage [psychoanalytic term: roughly, when a baby sees itself in the mirror and gains an idea of itself as discontinuous from the rest of the world – MU]. It can be understood within the binary of self/other and can be seen as organizing the very existence of individual subjects. While Otherness is something that we all experience in a psychological sense, the processes of othering have specific implications when used to disempower and colonize certain peoples.
From Key Concepts in Post-colonial Studies: Alterity is derived from the Latin, alteritas, meaning 'the state of being other or different: diversity, otherness'. In postcolonial theory, the term has often been used interchangeably with otherness and difference. The self-identity of the colonizing subject, indeed the identity of imperial culture, is inextricable from alterity of colonized others, an alterity determined, according to Spivak, by the process of othering.
A
Technical Definition:
Although the term is used extensively in existential philosophy [. . .] the definition of the term as used in current post-colonial theory is rooted in the Freudian and post-Freudian analysis of the formation of subjectivity, most specifically in the work of [. . .] Lacan. Lacan’s use of the term involves distinction between the ‘Other’ and the ‘other’ . . . the [small o] other designates the other who resembles the self, which the child discovers when it looks in the mirror [and the ‘anticipation of mastery’ promised by this mirror-other] will become the basis of the ego. [. . .] In post-colonial theory, [the other] can refer to the colonized others who are marginalized by the imperial discourse, identified by their difference from the centre and, perhaps crucially, become the focus of anticipated mastery by the imperial ‘ego.’
The [capital O] Other has been called the grande-autre by Lacan, the great Other, in whose gaze the subject gains identity. The Symbolic Other is not a real interlocuter but can be embodied in other subjects such as the mother or father that may represent it. [. . .] Thus the Other can refer to the mother whose separation from the subject locates her as the first focus of desire; it can refer to the father whose Otherness locates the subject in the Symbolic order; it can refer to the unconscious itself because the unconscious is structured like a language that is separate from the language of the subject. [. . .]
This Other can be compared to the imperial centre, imperial
discourse, or the empire itself, in two ways: firstly, it provides the terms in
which the colonized subject gains a sense of his or her identity as somehow
‘other,’ dependent [non-normative; hence de Beauvoir’s Second Sex refers
to the way women have been othered and defined as the thing that deviates from
the (masculine) norm – MU]; secondly, it becomes the ‘absolute pole of
address,’ the ideological framework in which the colonized subject may come to
understand the world. In colonial discourse, the subjectivity of the colonized
is continually located in the gaze of the imperial Other, the ‘grande-autre.’
Subjects may be interpellated by the ideology of the maternal and nurturing
function of the colonizing power, concurring with descriptions such as ‘mother
On the other hand, the Symbolic Other may be represented in the Father. The significance and enforced dominance of the imperial language into which colonial subjects are inducted may give them a clear sense of power being located in the colonizer, a situation corresponding metaphorically to the subject’s entrance into the Symbolic order and the discovery of the Law of the Father. The ambivalence of colonial discourse lies in the fact that both these processes of ‘othering’ occur at the same time, the colonial subject being both a ‘child’ of empire and a primitive and degraded subject of imperial discourse.
[This is WAY more technical than you need to be – for our purposes, assume that Othering is a way of seeing and characterizing people that has unhealthy results for yourself (your ego being fragile) and for the Othered, who may internalize your stereotypes]
An
Anthropological Definition:
Othering:
Simplistic recognition of normal human diversity, combined with ethnocentric thinking can lead to a tendency to depict ‘others’ [women, natives, gorillas...] as somehow, categorically, topologically, intrinsically, DIFFERENT.
In that “difference”, lays the potential for HIERARCHICAL or STEREOTYPICAL thinking ie: all natives are the same.... all women are the same.... All men are the same [and they come from Mars]....
This practice of comparing ourselves to others and AT THE
SAME TIME DISTANCING ourselves from them is called ‘OTHERING’, by which we
mean positing that humans and societies whose life and historical experiences
vary from your own are ‘different’ [which is true] and not understandable
[which is not true]; use of the distance and difference to re-confirm one’s
own ‘normalcy’
“Ethnocentrism”
- this is simply the tendency to view one’s own culture as good / beautiful / logical / sensible / and true, and then by extension, viewing other peoples’ cultures as less, as ungood, or bizarre.
Ethnocentrism, like ‘othering’ is a problematic slip we make when we categorize and evaluate those whom we seek to understand, but on the basis of our own assumptions, biases, and MYTHOLOGIES about ‘them’....
- An ANTIDOTE to this tendency, which we embrace in anthropology is called “Cultural Relativism”
A
Literary / Popular Definition:
When social, ethical, cultural, or literary critics use the
term "The Other" they are thinking about the social and/or
psychological ways in which one group excludes or marginalizes another group. By
declaring someone "Other," persons tend to stress what makes them
dissimilar from or opposite of another, and this carries over into the way they
represent others, especially through stereotypical images. It also extends
to political decisions and cultural practices. In the recent past of the United
States, Anglo-Americans made African-Americans into cultural Others through the
use of minstrel shows in blackface, popular figures like Sambo and Aunt Jemima,
and separatist policies like the Jim Crow laws. Similar practices can be
traced in practically (if not) every culture in the globe. The recent
genocidal wars in
Literary works, being part of the fallen world, play a part in Othering. One only needs to look at representations of blackness in works like Aphra Behn's Oronoko or Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness or at typical female characters in novels like Samuel Richardson's Pamela or Robert Herrick's poetry to realize that fictional representations of race and gender influence how others are perceived. Yet they can also be written to counter such notions, e.g., Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart or Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own. Tragically, texts with no intent to oppress or marginalize another group can be misappropriated to such ends--even scripture.