Identity Sociology Otherness and Diversity

Especially in socially stratified societies, otherness is the quality of being labeled, perceived, and treated as different from the dominant group. Otherness is a relational construct that hinges on the construction of a hegemonic default: whether that hegemony is based on gender, ethnicity, social class, or any other designation the dominant culture deems valuable or important in maintaining its own superior status. Both a sociological and a psychological phenomenon, otherness has tremendous implications for how social institutions function, as well as how each individual forms self-concept, self-esteem, and identity.
Otherness can therefore entail the internalization of the qualities the dominant group projects onto out-groups. In some cases, internalizing otherness leads to a sense of alienation and isolation; in other cases otherness can lead to embracing one’s status as a form of personal or group pride, forming an identity that is aligned not with the dominant culture but with a stigmatized other. The process of “othering” can be used to incite discrimination via the construction of hierarchical categories, but othering can also be used to project seemingly positive qualities that serve the cognitive schemas of the dominant group. For example, Edward Said (1978) first demonstrated how “orientalism” is a process whereby “Westerners” project qualities like exoticism on people from “Eastern” places. Orientalism is the quintessential form of othering, whereby the European hegemony deems anything outside of its realm of existence as being other, exotic, weird, or bizarre. Qualities like exoticism may be perceived of as “positive” stereotypes, as when people claim that Asians are good at math, but there is no such thing as a “positive” stereotype. The fact that they are stereotypes at all precludes the ability of individuals to take control of their own identity construction, to determine how individuals are perceived, or simply to coexist in an egalitarian world. Otherness is a status as well as a stigma, preventing the realization of social justice and equity.
The fundamental tenet of otherness is creating in-group and out-group statuses. Otherness has been reinvented to promote the construction of positive personal identities that subvert the dominant culture and its biases, prejudices, and assumptions. Unfortunately, the use of otherness as a springboard for group identity is oppositional and therefore has the potential to exacerbate segregation in the society. Ultimately, otherness is a discursive practice, one that necessarily entails continually questioning social norms and relationships (Staszak, 2008). What is deemed other or different in one generation may become integrated into the dominant culture in the next. Even when, as Madrid (1995) points out, the other is invisible, an inner psychological dialogue takes place, informing personal identity.
Otherness entrenches hegemony, acknowledging that there are categories of dominance and subordination. Yet otherness can also be transformed into an ironic source of social and cultural capital. Being the other can shape a person’s personality and outlook on life in ways that can subvert or even enrich an impoverished dominant culture. Otherness can be dichotomous, particularly when a person is a member of an invisible minority group that vies for recognition as being other than the hegemonic group. When a person is a visible “minority,” a non-white other, the status as an outsider may be “permanently sealed,” as Madrid (1995) puts it (p. 5). When a person longs to blend in or be considered independently of one’s ethnic, national, linguistic, or cultural heritage, otherness can be debilitating. Yet so too can the need to assert one’s difference; when invisibility is undesirable. Bi-racial, bi-cultural, and invisible minorities may struggle with identity even more so than members of a dominant cultural or social group.
Negotiating the dichotomies and paradoxes of otherness requires self-awareness and a sense of humor. As Avila-Saavedra (2011) found in an analysis of Latino/a comedians, the medium of comedy helps individuals to assert their identity, thereby capitalizing on otherness in ways that subverts the process of marginalization and stigma. Without the ability to use humor as a means of social critique, otherness can too easily become a source of bitterness, anger, or resentment that indelibly changes the way one views the rest of the world. Humor invites a public discussion of stereotypes, enabling members of both in-group and out-group to look honestly at their prejudices and biases. Through comedy, one can perceive the ways in which self-concept has been shaped by how a dominant group has historically portrayed the other. Comedic forms encourage lightheartedness and self-awareness, promoting empathy and understanding. Humor changes the public discourse, and can also be used to alter one’s own personal identity and self-concept.
The other can be defined according to geographic lines, according to lines that demarcate socioeconomic class, or according to any parameter deemed relevant to maintain the dominant group’s worldview. No matter how otherness is constructed or maintained, it can cause interpersonal or psychological strife. Besides comedy, another means of challenging and overcoming the “ghettoization, marginalization, isolation” that otherness often entails is through the construction of a collective identity and community solidarity (Madrid, 1995, p. 6). A collective identity of the marginalized provides a sort of strength in numbers, and can be a powerful weapon towards the achievement of liberation and equity. For instance, Avila-Saavedra (2011) refers to the ways that Latin Americans create a collective Latinidad identity in spite of coming from dozens of disparate regions and having different histories, even being from completely different social classes, ethnicities, and religions. The Latinidad identity challenges the efficacy of whiteness as the default American identity. Interestingly, the creation of a collective identity such as Latinidad or others, like African American or Asian American, does not preclude the emergence of various sub-categories that promote genuine ethnic or cultural pride. For instance, a Chilean can proudly consider oneself Latin American while joking about the inferiority of Peruvian pisco sours. Humor helps to solidify the complex discursive process of personal and collective identity.
Unless a sense of wholeness amid diversity can be achieved, otherness and the process of othering preclude social justice. In a society as heterogeneous as the United States, it is especially important to cease conceptualizing any non-white group as being ethnic, or to stop considering non-white cultures as being non-normative. Otherness has nothing to do with being an actual numerical majority, because even a minority group can become hegemonic as with South African apartheid. The future of otherness embraces diversity and difference without presuming any one group deserves the default status, or default power or privilege. “The United States is...the essence of diversity,” (Madrid, 1995, p. 7). Unfortunately, diversity has yet to become a fully realized source of collective American identity. Hegemony prevails, in all aspects of identity including race, class, and gender. When otherness does not lead to discrimination it too easily results in Orientalism (Said, 1978) or exoticism, which “opposes the abnormality of elsewhere with the normality of here,” (Staszak, 2008, p 6).
To promote a more egalitarian society constructed on principles of social justice, each person needs to closely examine their own identity and process of identity construction. Overcoming the tendency to create in-groups and out-groups is challenging, as it seems almost embedded in human nature and in social psychological behaviors. Switching one’s point of reference away from an imaginary norm, it becomes possible to erase the boundary between self and other while still promoting respect and recognition of diversity.








References

Avila-Saavedra, G. (2011). Ethnic otherness versus cultural assimilation. Mass Communication and Society 14(3): 271-291.
Madrid, A. (1995). Diversity and its discontents. In Verderber, K.S. (Ed.). Voices. Wadsworth Publishing.
Said, E.W. (1978). Orientalism. London: Routledge.
Staszak, J.F. (2008). Other/otherness. International Encyclopedia of Human Geography. http://www.unige.ch/sciences-societe/geo/files/3214/4464/7634/OtherOtherness.pdf