Othering

Conceptual Overview and Discussion

The concept of otherness holds difference at its core. Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit established the source of othering as part of our struggle for identity. Psychoanalytic scholars have grounded the distinction between the self and other as central to the establishment of a coherent sense of “me” and “not me.” The other is defined against the self, or vice versa, and knowing the other contributes to our bounded sense of self. In these traditions the other is theorized to be a necessary part of the human psyche, and the creation of the other is a profoundly human process of existence.

The term othering emerged from the postmodern era, most prominently in social science research theorizing a postcolonial era. Within critical race theory postcolonial analyses examined this tendency to create the “other.” Postcolonial analyses have deepened the understanding of how being an other causes fractures along sociopolitical structural lines. These fault lines are not equally balanced in power dynamics. Othering is a structurally based process that underscores the privilege of the dominant group. Power circulates within the structures in ways that enable the dominant group to define what “other” is. As such, othering is part of a colonizing process that is all encompassing. It is a dominant group's assertion of what is different in a way that negates the value of that difference. The dualism or the binary is set up in a totalizing manner that creates hierarchy as in civilized-uncivilized, developed-undeveloped, human-not human.

Defining the other is the project of colonizing praxis; therefore, it is not surprising that postcolonial theorizing should raise questions of representation. The debates about representation seemed to suggest that othering could not be completely avoided. It did not matter how carefully a researcher or research team might eschew any practices that would give rise to othering; there was always the power dynamic of the sociohistorical era circulating within the research that later generations would see as essentialist. There was also the notion that audience interpretations could use the knowledge in ways that the researcher or research team never intended. The avoidance of othering seemed daunting to the point of questioning the research enterprise and representational aspects of any research. The debates illustrated how othering was recognized as deeply problematic.

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