Stranger

Most, if not all, societies have some concept of the stranger, many of which appear to be quite straightforward. The word comes to us through the Latin word extraneus meaning foreign or external, and while this meaning is retained in English, the uses of the concept of the stranger are more complex. In Ancient Greece, non-Greek speakers (barbaros) were considered to be strangers or barbarians, while the term xenos (as in xenophobia) was used to mean both foreigner, in the sense of somebody to be feared, and guest, in the sense of someone to be welcomed. The Latin term hospes (as in hospitality) means both stranger and host. The stranger, then, is a curiously contradictory figure on whom opposing forces seem to coalesce: A stranger who receives hospitality may later be viewed as hostile or vice versa. While popular usage implies a shared understanding of what the term means, a precise definition of the stranger is difficult to formulate. The German sociologist Georg Simmel describes the stranger as one who is both near and far, one who is physically proximate but socially distant. That is, a stranger is someone who is located close to us in space but about whom we know little; the stranger is both inside and outside. At base, a stranger is someone unknown to us.

This entry begins with a discussion of the stranger as a socially defined category, followed by an examination of the stranger's inside/outside status, and a brief exploration of the stranger as an object of fear and hostility.

While the term gathers a number of seemingly contradictory ideas, the category “stranger” is socially defined. That is, no person has an innate quality that makes him or her into a stranger; rather, persons or groups are defined (or may define themselves) as strangers in particular social contexts. Few of us could claim to be strangers in every social context, but most of us have firsthand experience of being a stranger. As a socially defined category, it is of particular interest to scholars of deviance. Indeed, being a stranger in a particular social situation might make us feel as if we are in some way deviant. As with deviance more generally, this quality of being stranger is always in relation to the social situations in which we find ourselves. For example, immigrants have traditionally been described as strangers, not only because they may be unknown but more specifically because they are often unfamiliar with the norms and expectations that members of the host society take for granted.

The social position of the stranger is of special value in knowledge production and dispute resolution. Social scientists have long used this particular social position as a valuable methodological tool. Ethnographers, for example, immerse themselves in groups and societies to which they are alien to develop a better understanding of social processes. In a similar vein, students of sociology are taught to “make the familiar strange,” that is, to look at their own experiences and society as if through the eyes of a stranger. In situations where we are strangers, we have a tendency to poke holes in taken-for-granted knowledge and question background assumptions. This is because strangers are unshackled by social conventions and preconceptions: They may have a clearer vision of how a society operates because of their lack of connection and social obligation or because the underlying structures that organize a given context become visible to them. Employing the duality of the stranger's insider/outsider position, black feminists, for example, have offered insightful critiques of the workings of predominantly male and white institutions. The stranger's ability to see differently is especially useful in adjudication and dispute resolution. For example, in most Canadian jurisdictions, law enforcement officers cannot be posted to communities where they are from in the belief that they are more likely to be biased in their home communities. Similarly, a couple having difficulties is unlikely to seek help from a relationship counselor who is a close friend of one partner but not of the other. The stranger's lack of familiarity can facilitate objective judgment and unbiased intervention. Put simply, a stranger has a capacity for objectivity that group members might lack.

...