author: Iryna Zhovtonoh
The urgency of the research. Nowadays, wars and military conflicts, the extermination of symbols and the demolition of cultural signs today mean the problem of othering as an ontological destruction of human identity.
Target setting. The aim of the article is to research the manifestation of the ontological destruction of people's identity as the process of the Othering. In order to achieve this aim, individual and social levels of conflict constriction are analyzed.
Actual scientific researches and issues analysis. Jean-François Staszak in his research approves that the process of people’s othering is the result of differences construction. Homi K. Bhabha characterizes the Othering as an evil social representation of people’s identities. The scientist connects such representation with stereotype understanding of people’s ethnicity. Fred Dervin studies the process of the Othering in relation to the concept of cultural identity. He claims that the tendency to the categorization of people occurs in order to define the cultural elements as the explanations of people's behaviors.
The research objective. The task of the research is to identify the background and reasons causing differences and categorizations in societies. At this stage, it is important to define the connection of the Othering with the concept of cultural identity. In this way, it is necessary to reveal the examples of manifestation of the process of the Othering as the destruction of people’s identity. It also plays a crucial role in analyzing the individual and social consequences causing the issue of the Othering.
The statement of basic materials. The Othering constructs mutually excluding narratives using prejudices and stereotypes. This representation of people’s identities emphasizes not (belonging) and not (corresponding) of particular groups of people to the overwhelming majority of people in society. Accordingly, the artificial construction of rejection and exclusion of other people takes part as symbolic violence. In fact, it is the deliberate destruction of symbolic signs of experience and the living space of other people.
Conclusions. The Othering is considered as the process of people's identity destruction. It occurs as a cultural signs’ extermination. The practices of the Othering in this society are the reconstruction of people's identity as a threat of safety. Ontological destruction of identity has the result in depreciation, instrumentalization, objectification, dehumanization and physical extermination.
Keywords: ontological destruction, the Othering, mutually excluding, symbolic violence, instrumentalization, objectification.
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