Otherness: Outsiders, foreigners, strangers and monsters

Abstract

Sociologists and anthropologists have theorized the idea of otherness through four archetypal figures – the outsider, the foreigner, the stranger, and the monster – each of which constitutes a particular approach to the phenomenon of difference. Each of these figures conveys a very different image of the person or group branded as ‘other’, with some figures suggesting a degree of closeness and similarity, whilst others imply great or even radical difference. Using these four theoretical constructs, the authors propose a conceptual map that defines spaces of social distance depending on the degree of difference a particular society attributes to a subject or subjects defined as ‘other’.