Othering

Abstract

In this paper I address the process that I call “othering,” a specific process of differentiation that human beings sometimes employ in relation to each other in an effort to establish a distance between them. Often this is done within an asymmetrical relation, most notably through asymmetries of power, which is why a study of othering is a crucial component of the phenomenology of oppression. This concrete phenomenology revitalized the studies already conducted by Sartre in his later work that have largely fallen into neglect. In particular I attempt to show othering cannot be adequately understood on the basis of a philosophy of autonomous individuals but must be approached in terms of an understanding of collective identities.