Otherness implies recognizing the existence of an Other who is foreign to one's own community.
The notion of otherness is common in philosophy , sociology , anthropology and other sciences. It is about the recognition of the Other as a different individual, who is not part of one's own community.
By recognizing the existence of an Other, the person himself assumes his identity. Otherness does not imply, in any case, that the Other must be discriminated against or stigmatized; On the contrary, the differences that are noted when classifying one's neighbor as an Other constitute social wealth and can help people grow.
Construction of otherness
Otherness is constructed through various psychological and social mechanisms . An Other implies the existence of something that is not one's own and, therefore, is not part of each individual's existence. However, that external thing that is governed autonomously with respect to oneself can also affect and alter the individuality of the subject in question who considers otherness.
Although it is true that otherness in itself does not have to be accompanied by anything negative, it is common that, in many cases, it is linked to aspects such as xenophobia, racism, homophobia or even misogyny, among others.
At a social level, it is usual for otherness to be constructed from otherness and opposition : the Other is what we never were, are not and will not be. It could even be said that the Other is what we do not want to be. Of course, who the Other is varies according to the perspective of each individual: for Westerners, the Other is the Easterners while, for them, otherness will be given by the existence of the Westerners.
Although otherness is often associated with prejudice, it can also foster the development of empathy and solidarity.
The vision of Sartre and Peace
There have been and are many authors who, throughout history, have analyzed in depth the issue of otherness. This would be the case, for example, of the French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre (1905 – 1980), who used that term to thoroughly study the existence of oneself through what would be the gaze of the other.
Thus, he established that otherness was present in the daily life of any person. As? Through elements such as empathy, rejection, tolerance or sympathy. Specifically, he determined that he was forceful in using terms such as “other people's shame.”
In the same way, we cannot ignore that the Mexican poet and essayist Octavio Paz also addressed the term otherness and everything that it entails. Thus, he came to express that this need to find what was lost and to search for a complement from which one was separated often leads to otherness. It triggers the march to the past and other people to cover gaps of various types.
This writer analyzed the word in question so thoroughly that he is even known by many as the poet of otherness.
Otherness and ethnocentrism
It usually starts from an ethnocentric position to understand otherness. Europeans, for example, coined the idea of the discovery of America to refer to their arrival on the continent , denying through language the existence of the natives (the Other) who inhabited these lands.
As can be seen in the idea of this "discovery" , for the Europeans the new continent was uninhabited: the aborigines were nobody.