Issues of the construction of Self and Other, normally in the context of social exclusion of those perceived as different, have assumed a new urgency. This collection offers a fresh perspective on the ongoing debates on these questions in the social sciences and the humanities by focusing specifically on one theoretical proposition, namely, that the seemingly universal processes of identity formation and exclusion of the ‘other’ can be differentiated according to three modalities. All contributors directly engage with rigorous empirical testing and theoretical cross-examination of this proposition. Their results have direct implications not only for a more differentiated understanding of collective identities, but also for a better understanding of extreme collective violence and genocide.
Table of Content
List of Figures
Foreword
Gerd Baumann and Andre Gingrich Acknowledgments
STEP I: FROM AN ESSENTIALISED USE OF ‘OTHERING’ TO A DIFFERENTIATION OF GRAMMARS
Chapter 1. Conceptualising Identities: Anthropological Alternatives to Essentialising Difference and Moralizing about Othering
Andre Gingrich
Chapter 2. Grammars of Identity/Alterity: A Structural Approach
Gerd Baumann
STEP II: FROM A REPERTOIRE OF GRAMMARS TO HIERARCHIES AND POWER
Chapter 3. Othering the Scapegoat in Nepal: The Ritual of Ghantakarna
Michael Mühlich
Chapter 4. German Grammars of Identity/Alterity: A Diachronic View
Anne Friederike Müller
Chapter 5. Alterity as Celebration, Alterity as Threat: A Comparison of Grammars between Brazil and Denmark
Inger Sjørslev
STEP III: FROM POWER TO VIOLENCE – WHEN GRAMMARS IMPLODE
Chapter 6. Completing or Competing ? Contexts of Hmong Selfing/Othering in Laos
Christian Postert
Chapter 7. ‘Out of the Race’: The Poiesis of Genocide in Mass Media Discourses in Côte d’Ivoire
Karel Arnaut
Chapter 8. Dehumanization as a Double-Edged Sword: From Boot-Camp Animals to Killing Machines
Jojada Verrips
STEP IV: FROM TESTING GRAMMARS TO WIDENING THE DEBATE
Chapter 9. Between Structure and Agency: From the langue of Hindutva Identity Construction to the parole of Lived Experience
Christian Karner
Chapter 10. Encompassment and its Discontents: The Rmeet and the Lowland Lao
Guido Sprenger
Chapter 11. Debating Grammars: Arguments and Prospects
Gerd Baumann and Andre Gingrich
Notes on Contributors
Subject Index
Name Index
About the author
Andre Gingrich is Professor for Social Anthropology at Vienna University and Member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. His ethnographic field interests include the Muslim Middle East, but also Tibet and Austria. Having lectured and taught at SAR (Santa Fé), the University of Chicago, and other institutions in the US and Europe, his books include Anthropology by Comparison (2002, co-edited with R.G.Fox).
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