Alterity (Otherness)

Conceptual Overview

Both identity and alterity do appear in social studies—usually in two versions, which can be situated on two extremes of the exclusion-inclusion dimension. One version is typical for cultural studies and is strongly influenced by the work of Michel Foucault, who claimed that the exclusion of what is different is an act of identity formation. The other end of the dimension is represented by the post-Hegelians, who see the interplay between identity and alterity as a dialectical move, resulting in the inclusion of all otherness into an expanding identity. Thus, in the discourse of and on identity, alterity is either attributed (others are different from us) or incorporated (others are similar to us). The third possibility, the affirmation of difference (we are different), is mostly forgotten.

One exception is Gilles Deleuze's anti-Hegelian project, inspired by Gabriel Tarde, in which he speaks of affirmation of difference. This process of calling attention to distinctions has been noticed by other scholars, but it was usually called a negativity (what we are not), or a game of internal difference, in contrast to “true alterity,” that of the other. For the Foucauldians, negativity is uninteresting in the face of the true, irremediable alterity of the other, which cannot concern oneself. For the post-Hegelians, negativity is but further proof of incorporation, of a harmonizing removal of differences in the process of identity formation. In Deleuze's terms, negativity can be seen as the last point on the identity continuum constituted by the same, the similar, the analogous, and the opposed, none of which constitutes an affirmation of difference. Deleuze is criticizing philosophy's unreflective subordination of difference to identity and suggests that attention should be focused on difference as such. For him, like for Tarde, existence begins with difference.

The two first views—exclusion and inclusion—are grounded in anthropological studies of relations between Westerners and their others. This excessive focus on identity, a phenomenon that, as early as 1893, was worrying Tarde, is most likely connected to the rise of nationalism, as described by Benedict Anderson. The emerging nation states needed to convince their citizens that they had much in common. The colonial powers needed to convince their envoys that it is the natives who are different and therefore strange. As a consequence, the issue of identity became dominant to the point that writer and journalist, Ian Buruma, called it the tyranny of identity, and literature professor Peter Brooks referred to it as the identity paradigm.

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