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Otherness as a paradigm in anthropology

Abstract The article proposes to take seriously the notion of otherness in anthropology and to assign it paradigmatic function for the discipline. Building on phenomenological philosophy, in particular Merleau-Ponty and Waldenfels, the Other is approached as alien, as something that essentially eludes the orders of self and culture, while at the same time challenging them. The article then discusses several ways in which this altered understanding of otherness might productively inform anthropology as the “science of the culturally Other.” Ethnographic representation, cultural and ritual orders, and social events are conceptualized in exemplary fashion as responses to an alien demand.