What is Otherness:
As otherness is called the condition or state of being other or being different. As such, it applies to the discovery that other make the he and the entire wide range of images and representations of the other and of us that this brings with it.
The word, as such, comes from Latin alterations, alteritātiswhich in turn derives from Latin alterwhich means ‘other’.
For the philosophy, alterity is the opposite of identity and, in this sense, it can be defined as the opposition relationship that is registered between the thinking subject, that is, the Iand the object thought, that is, the not me. Thus, alterity is the philosophical principle that allows one to alternate or change one’s own perspective for that of the other.
In this sense, alterity implies that an individual is able to put themselves in the place of the other, which makes it possible to establish relationships with the other based on dialogue and the awareness and appreciation of existing differences.
Thus, according to alterity, to constitute an individuality, the existence of a collective is first necessary, since the self exists from the other and from the vision of the other. The other allows the self to understand the world from a different perspective in relation to its own.
In fact, one of the principles of the theory of alterity is that the self, in its individual form, can only exist through contact with the other, since the human being, as a social subject, inherently has a relationship of interaction and dependence on the other.
Hence it is affirmed that difference constitutes the basis of social life and its dynamics and, at the same time, the source of its tensions and conflicts.
Alterity in Anthropology
Anthropology, whose object of study is man and his biological and social aspects, is known for being the science of otherness, since it basically focuses on the study of the differences that exist between different cultures and ethnicities, that is, of other. Hence, otherness has a fundamental role in this discipline.