In this dissertation I address the question of why some social groups classify some people and groups as strangers. To answer the question I focus the stranger in the writings of the Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman. According to Bauman, the social construction of the stranger cannot be compared with the asymmetrical relation between an in-group and an out-group. An in-group stands for friends and proximity. It considers the out-group as the enemy at a distance. The hierarchical and a reciprocal relationship that exists between the in-group and the out-group is a part of the social order. The stranger, on the other hand, is constructed in the ambivalent position between the in-group and the out-group. Since there is no room for the stranger in an orderly world she has to be dealt with in a way that keeps the world free from incongruity. Since Bauman considers the moral consequence of cultural classification, his work is also relevant for the question of living with the stranger. Leaving the Occidental rational tradition in favour of a phenomenological tradition, Bauman offers a view that considers the encounter with the stranger as a moral meeting. Highlighting responsibility, instead of social arrangements, law or tradition, Bauman visualises the stranger as a moral subject and not as aparticular social type, one who is constantly out of place The theoretical considerations of the social making of the stranger, and the moral understanding of living for the stranger, contribute to a deeper understanding about the institutional origins of social marginalisation and cultural exclusion.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-4773 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Månsson, Niclas |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Pedagogiska institutionen, Uppsala : Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Doctoral thesis, monograph, info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | Uppsala Studies in Education, 0347-1314 ; 108 |
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