ABSTRACT
The social and political construction of newcomers as strangers is a process which identifies and names what eventually become the popular public understandings of the various categories of the 'other'. To at least sorne degree, such public understandings demarcate the boundaries of what can be contested by advocates or third parties who are engaged on behalf of such newcomers. That is, the things that can be 'put on the table' as points of discussion, deliberation and negotiation must fit within general parameters of a particular society's normative rramework, as well as the everyday social mores which distinguish societies and peoples. 1t goes without saying that if no one were considered a 'stranger', or in sorne way an outsider, measures for inclusion, or admission in the case of refugees, would not be necessary. In such a situation a state of 'perpetua) peace', grounded on cosmopolitan values might be expected to prevail (Kant 1970, Nussbaum 1997).
