Alterity

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Alterity means 'otherness', strictly being in the sense of the other of two (Latin alter). It is generally now taken as the philosophical principle of exchanging one's own perspective for that of the "other."

It was established by Emmanuel Levinas in a series of essays, collected under the title Alterity and Transcendence.

In anthropology it is used by scholars such as Johannes Fabian, Michael Taussig and Pauline Turner Strong to refer to the construction of cultural others.

[edit] References

Fabian, Johannes (1983) Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object. Columbia University Press.

Strong, Pauline Turner (1999) Captive Selves, Captivating Others: The Politics and Poetics of Colonial American Captivity Narratives. Westview Press/Perseus Books.

Taussig, Michael (1993) Mimesis and Alterity. Routledge.

[edit] See also

Look up alterity in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.


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