ABSTRACT
Difference is constructed along so many complex and overlapping dimensions that it would be pointless to try to reduce it to a fundamental one. A multitude of exclusionary practices have created many figures of “the other,” which have enabled the effect of unambiguous, collective self-identities. Still, the inconclusiveness of such constructions, the fragility and failures of coding and territorializing practices, results in an inherent insecurity, an alertness to dangers that would undermine them. It seems that in a globalizing world these insecurities are increasingly visible.3 In this chapter I discuss several constructions of otherness that are significant in terms of contemporary immigration practices. While I would not want to suggest that all exclusionary practices can be understood as instances of racism, “race” is inextricably connected to the constructions I focus on in this study. This can certainly be justified in view of the fact that many of the reactions to immigration from the Third World to Western industrialized countries focus on cultural differences that easily blur into constructed racial and ethnic differences.
