othering

plural otherings

1. gerunduncountableusuallygovernmentgerund of other: the process of perceiving or portraying someone or something as essentially alien or different.

   The process of political othering was not simply a rhetorical consequence of the Revolution's own unifying political culture.

   2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation: France from Louis XV to Napoleon 1715–99, London: Allen Lane, →ISBN; republished London: Penguin Books, 2003, →ISBN, page 553

   5 more examples

   [T]he For-self-ness of the one must therefore make the other something other than it is immediately set in the judgment: this self-preservation through subjection of the other under itself is therefore immediately an othering of this other; but the nature of Judgment must at the same time equally assert itself in this alteration and sublate at the same time this otherness.

   1865, James Hutchison Stirling, quoting Rudolf Haym (translated), “The Commentators of Hegel: Schwegler, Rosencranz, Haym”, in The Secret of Hegel: Being the Hegelian System in Origin, Principle, Form, and Matter. [...] In Two Volumes, volume II, London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, & Green, →OCLC, page 465

   [T]he Ego discerns itself, distinguishes itself, others itself; this Otherness is, as contrasted with the first phase, its being Out-of-Itself, and, since the Othering is a making itself an object to itself, it is also its being For-Itself; [...]

   1870, Francis A. Henry, “The Finite and the Infinite. [Part II.]”, in William T[orrey] Harris, editor, The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, volume IV, number 4, St. Louis, Mo.: R. P. Studley & Co., printers, […], →OCLC, page 297

   "Othering" may be defined as that process which serves to mark and name those thought to be different from oneself. An example of this is recent scholarship on whiteness. As Ruth Frankenberg asserts, to focus on whiteness is to displace the white from the unmarked, unnamed status that is itself an effect of its dominance. [...] The process of "othering" as an integral part of the identity formation of dominant whites is absolutely clear here.

   1995, Lois Weis, “Identity Formation and the Process of ‘Othering’: Unraveling Sexual Threads”, in Educational Foundations: A Journal Focusing on Interdisciplinary Aspects of the Educational Foundations, volume 9, number 1, Ann Arbor, Mich.: Prakken Publications; San Francisco, Calif.: Caddo Gap Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 18

   The ambivalence of colonial discourse lies in the fact that both these processes of ‘othering’ occur at the same time, the colonial subject being both a ‘child’ of empire and a primitive and degraded subject of imperial discourse.

   1998, Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, Helen Tiffin, “OTHER”, in Key Concepts in Post-colonial Studies, London; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, published 2002, →ISBN, page 171

   Australians are conscious of multiple Otherings, both oppressive and affectionate. As white Australians locate Aboriginal people metaphorically "out there," so the rest of the world locates us all "down under."

   2000, Lesley Head, “Hunter-gatherers, Land, and the Past”, in Second Nature: The History and Implications of Australia as Aboriginal Landscape (Space, Place, and Society), Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, →ISBN, page 15

   Synonyms: alienation, discrimination, otherization

1. gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of other