Luka Šešo

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OthernessNo. 2 - Year 1106/2021 - Editorial.1ISSN 1847-7755 1EditorialOtherness as a Social and Cultural Determinant of the Past,Present and FutureIt is likely that anyone who encounters the term otherness for the first time would think it describessomething different from us and yet akin to us. And they would be right, just as they wouldsimultaneously be wrong. Otherness is an exceptionally complex term, which cannot beunderstood separately from the idea of the self. When we want to articulate who is, to us, the other,we also have to articulate who is their opposite – the latter being us. Therefore, when speaking ofthe other, we inevitably speak of ourselves. The coupling of terms myself/other was mentionedalready by Hegel, who emphasized that the identification of the Other enabled the synthetization ofone’s own identity (112). The Other (who is often identified within ethnic, racial, religious,geographical, and many other cultural and social categories) functions as a mirror. For GeorgSimmel, for example, the Other is more than a stranger who is either close to or distant from us.The Other is an element that can simultaneously be a member of the group, outside of it, and in aconfrontation with it (144). For Emanuel Levinas, the Other is what I am not. It is identified as onesimilar to us, but also different and extraneous. Precisely this extraneousness, which Levinas alsorefers to as alterity, illuminates a subject’s path toward himself by demonstrating that which isintrinsic – where he belongs (43, 48). By identifying the Other, a person or a group is labeled in aprocess in which we construct our own roles, our position within the society, and the meaning ofourselves. To have an Other is essential to creating an identity, for by identifying the Other, wefacilitate the understanding of that which is “here” and that which is “there” because, as AntonySmith emphasized, identity is not created merely from one’s own experiences, memories, andmyths, but through positioning oneself in relation to the collective identities of Others (11-36, 43).This process of synthetization of one’s own identity consists of forming an awareness of an in-group, which is based on a necessary delimitation toward an out-group.OthernessNo. 2 - Year 1106/2021 - Editorial.1ISSN 1847-7755 2That is why, according to Durkheim, the drawing of boundaries is essential to the never-ceasingprocess of forming an identity. Creating social boundaries becomes a precondition, not aconsequence of social integration (115-22). Therefore, in the process of othering, it is imperative tounderstand the dynamics and mechanism of the creation of boundaries by which we define who,where, and when (someone) is the Other. However, the boundaries are often blurred. They areshifting, sometimes completely imaginary and invisible (Baudrillard and Guillaume 50) and theydepend on the viewpoint of the one who defines them, or rather imagines them – as BenedictAnderson vividly demonstrated while writing on the forming of modern nations. In the binaryopposition of Us/Them, according to Fredrik Barth, it is crucial to understand the slash betweenthose two words – meaning, the processes and context within which the boundaries are created,which consequentially leads to a better understanding of the dynamics of the identity formation(Wimmer). Thereby, the drawing of boundaries (be they real or symbolic ones) leads to thecreation of social, cultural, and moral categories, on the basis of which the hierarchies amonggroups are generated (Kastoryano 79). This consists of (self-)categorization, (self-)stereotypization, and (self-)presentation of collective ideal types (Hogg and Abrams 21), or ratherof ego/ethnocentric aspirations for which it is imperative to place the values of one’s own group atthe top of the ladder. In that process, although the Other could (and should) be seen as equal(Tekin 14), there are occurrences of demonization (witch-hunts and persecutions of heretics),dehumanization (racism), exploitation (colonization), subordination (slaveholding), neglect(ghettoization), even outright destruction (genocide) of the Other. A common justification of thatprocess is that the Other is being brought to civilized, modern, orderly, and exalted (our) systemsand values, while the actual purpose is the strengthening of one’s own identity, the increase ofone’s own power, or even advancing one’s own career, as Edward Said demonstrated on theexample of the Orient. Therefore, the process of othering stems from a clear awareness of oneself,but one detached from the awareness of the Other. Ignorance of foreign systems of symbols andvalues, i. e. the network of meanings which one has to understand in order to rise aboveego/ethnocentricity (Geertz 3-33), results in the process of othering. It is an unceasing process, forin its essence lies the synthetization of one’s own identity. In other words, as Charles Tylorclarifies, although the “myself” is familiar with the idea or an obligation toward the other, theOthernessNo. 2 - Year 1106/2021 - Editorial.1ISSN 1847-7755 3“myself” is also confronted with the idea of purely biological prerogatives to an ideal fulfillment ofoneself. According to the first idea, the “myself” should treat the others decently and excel amongthose similar to themselves. However, according to the second idea, the “myself” should continueto independently strive toward self-realization (Tylor 5; cf. Neumann 10), regardless of whether thatwould exclude the Others – or ourselves, as we are locked within our self-made boundaries andlimitations.It is precisely this “independent striving” that caused so many instances of othering throughouthistory, but in the present as well, as the spread of the epidemic, migration crises, andenvironmental disasters alter the economic, political, and cultural landscape of the world. Thepersistence of these numerous forms of othering in the culture and society of mankind prompted agroup of researchers at the Catholic University of Croatia in Zagreb to embark on a project entitled“Otherness as a Social and Cultural Determinant of the Past, Present and Future” in 2017, led bythe author of this introduction. While working on the project, we attempted to study the ways inwhich otherness had formed societies and cultures and to identify the elements of otherness thatconstructed the key social identities. While doing so, we focused on challenging the theory and thetextual manifestation of othering. Therefore, the lodestar of the project was the concept of text as asource, which was critically analyzed according to the anticipated goals of the project, sometimesby reaching for knowledge outside of the strictly academic canon. This implied searching formanifestations of otherness by using an interdisciplinary approach and a theoretical,epistemological, and methodological articulation of not only its historical and anthropologicalaspects but also its folkloristic, psychoanalytical, and literary aspects. Ultimately, the project aimedat providing substantiated, relevant results that would, by transcending ethnocentric views,demonstrate more clearly the importance of otherness in the formation of identity and its fluidity.For that purpose, this issue brings seven papers offering different views on the phenomenon ofothering. In his paper “Dog-headed Creatures as the Other: The Role of Monsters in theConstruction of the Croatian Identity,” the author of this introduction studied the concept of “dog-headed creatures,” which was used by European writers as early as the Classical Antiquity (and,later, in the Middle and the Early Modern Age), to explain the existence of “demonic” peoples andgroups outside of the cultural circles acceptable to themselves. The author detected this concept inOthernessNo. 2 - Year 1106/2021 - Editorial.1ISSN 1847-7755 4manuscripts on the Croatian traditional culture from the end of the 19th century and demonstratedthat the stories of dog-headed creatures were used for othering the Ottomans and otherundesirable groups. The concept has been used later by contemporary Croatian cultural politics,which, by publishing the texts on dog-headed creatures, wanted to demonstrate that Croatiabelonged to the Western and “civilized” cultural circle, in a time when new national identities wereforged across Europe. Ivan Majnarić’s paper, entitled “The Others and the Croats in Early MedievalEastern Adriatic History,” utilizes the viewpoint of the post-colonial theory of the Middle Ages andcontextualizes the othering presented in the two oldest Eastern Adriatic medieval historicalaccounts on the example of the “destruction” of the city of Salona and the identities linked to it.This case demonstrates the diachronic perspective of the use of the concept of othering, but alsoits function in constructing a text which, in order to get the intended message across, implies that apast, undesirable Other can be transformed into a present, desirable Other. Nataša Polgar’s paper,“Drugost ženskog/vještičjeg tijela: institucionalne prakse o(d)značivanja” (“The Otherness ofWoman's/Witches' Body: Institutional Practices of (De)Signification”), brings an exceptionallyinnovative analysis of the structuring of a witch’s body, based on the examples from the EarlyModern judicial procedures on the territory of today’s Croatia. The author relies on the Lacanianand post-Lacanian interpretation of the body and the place in which a witch’s body was put. Byemphasizing the fear of the Other as the fuel of all types of xenophobia toward witches, the imageof the witch is analyzed as a construct of a patriarchal society with strong political dimensions.Karla Žagi’s paper, “Perceiving the Migrant as “Other”: Analysis of Three Main Categories in theEuropean Migration Context,” deals with the contemporary processes of othering the migrants inEurope in general and specifically in Croatia. It demonstrates that the othering of migrants can beperceived in behavioral-perceptive, symbolical, and lingual categories, which makes the stance ofthe local populace toward migrants very complex, while the process of othering persists as a partof everyday life. Migrants are also the focus of the paper “A Critical Discourse Analytical Approachto Othering: Echoes of Syrian War in Turkish Children’s Literature” by Neslihan Kansu-Yetkiner,which did not originate within the aforementioned project but on the basis of the call for papers forthis issue. In the paper, the author analyzes three examples of Turkish children’s literature on thetopic of the Syrian civil war and demonstrates how children’s literature, which is used to inculcatesocietal norms, rules, and ideologies, is a tempting medium for denigrating and stereotyping theOthernessNo. 2 - Year 1106/2021 - Editorial.1ISSN 1847-7755 5Other in order to construct a positive image of the Self. The last two articles do not deal with theprocess of othering directly though they point out some related mechanisms. In his paper “Mappingthe Anomalous in Caryl Phillips’s ‘Heartland,’” Murat Öner analyzes Caryl Phillips’s story“Heartland,” which focuses on the dehumanization and displacement of slaves from their Africanhomeland during the British colonial rule. The author shows that the process is marked by a seriesof symbols – landscape, prison, trading post, the coast, the ocean, the ship above and below deck– which are gradually inscribed into a human being on his way from a free man toward an enslavedestranged body. The author of “Croatian Translations of Paradise Lost,” Kristina Grgić, analyzesfive Croatian translations of Milton’s religious epic. She shows how Croatian literate culturechanged and evolved in the course of almost two centuries that stand between the oldest and thelatest translation. The author pays special attention to those parts in which translators, some ofwhom were priests, attenuated Milton’s criticism of and ironic stance toward the Catholic Church,adjusting the text to the predominantly Catholic Croatian readership.With this thematic issue, which chronologically moves from identifying the process of othering inthe Classical Antiquity to a contextualization of othering in the form shaped by modern-day wars,we attempted to contribute to the understanding of this complex, nearly omnipresent, andtranshistorical concept. If we succeeded in offering at least a few explanations regarding itsfunctioning, or in encouraging other authors for further considerations, our efforts were not in vain.Luka ŠešoWorks CitedAnderson, Benedict. Nacija: zamišljena zajednica. Razmatranja o porijeklu i širenju nacionalizma.Translated by Nata Lengić and Nataša Pavlović, Školska knjiga, 1990.Barth, Fredrik. Introduction. Ethnic Groups and Boundaries. The Social Organization of CultureDifference, edited by Barth, Norwegian University Press, 1969, pp. 9-38.Baudrillard, Jean, and Marc M. Guillaume. Figures d'Altérité. Descartes, 1994.Tekin, Beyza Ç. Representations and Othering in Discourse: The construction of Turkey in the EUcontext. John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2010.OthernessNo. 2 - Year 1106/2021 - Editorial.1ISSN 1847-7755 6Durkheim, Emile. The Division of Labour in Society. Translated by George Simpson, Free Press,1964.Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures. Basic Books, 1973.Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. Phenomenology of Spirit. Translated by Arnold Vincent Miller, 1sted., Oxford University Press, 1977.Hogg, Michael A., and Dominic Abrams. Social Identifications: A Social Psychology of IntergroupRelations and Group Processes. Routledge, 1988.Kastoryano, Riva. “Codes of Otherness.” Social Research, vol. 77, no. 1, 2010, pp. 77-100.Lévinas, Emanuel. The Levinas Reader. Edited by Sean Hand, Basil Blackwell, 1989.Neumann, Iver B. Uses of the Other: “The East” in European Identity Making. University ofMinnesota Press, 1999.Said, Edward W. Orijentalizam: zapadnjačke predodžbe o Orijentu. Translated by Rešid Hafizović,Svjetlost, 1999.Simmel, Georg. “The Stranger.” Georg Simmel on Individuality and Social Forms, edited by DonaldN. Levine, 1st ed., University of Chicago Press, 1971, pp. 143-49.Smith, Antony D. Nacionalni identitet. Translated by Slobodan Đorđević, Biblioteka XX vek, 2010.Tylor, Charles. Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity. Harvard University Press,1989.Wimmer, Andreas. Ethnic Boundary Making: Institutions, Powers, Networks. Oxford UniversityPress, 2013.Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License

Otherness as a Social and Cultural Determinant of the Past, Present and Future

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