ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with some examples of mundane otherness and its role in interaction. The mechanism here that relates selves to others has been described by various symbolic interactionists. Alfred Schutz's famous essay on the stranger describes very well the disorientation that can arise when encountering others. This clearly introduces a dimension of social inequality, especially a notion of social class, since cultural capital is distributed as unequally as economic capital. Feminist theology has argued that the roots of this form of thinking lie buried in dualistic metaphysical thinking laid down through centuries by the Christian Church. For feminist theology it seems that the stranger, the outsider, is a positive idea and also a challenge. The challenge lies in not making an excluded other from this stranger and the positive is the way in which those beyond the boundaries of our known experience, if not fetishized, expand our tent and make the reality of incarnation ever wider and more fluid.
