Strangers, Inclusions, and Identities
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Rudolf Stich
Abstract
The paper examines from a historical and theoretical point of view the interrelation between the sociological theory of inclusion and exclusion and the classical sociology of the stranger. Inclusion/exclusion is a new theoretical perspective which mirrors the increasing prominence of communication in modern social systems and the pluralization of reference systems in which any psychic system in modern society is involved. Sociological theorizing on inclusion/exclusion thinks about how social systems include persons via addresses and the formation of expectations or exclude them by not creating addresses and expectations referring to them. In contradistinction to this general analytics of inclusion/exclusion, the sociology of the stranger theorizes a special case. It belongs to those corpora of sociological theorizing closely coupled with a historical semantics which we find in nearly every society we know anything about. There are at least three important social structural premises of the sociology of the stranger: participation in social systems is thought as membership; social systems are characterized by social closure; and, finally, persons as members are compact social objects, unifying diverse participations from a core identity attributed to persons. As all these three characteristics are no longer valid in modern society, the paper postulates that the sociology of the stranger and the analytics of inclusion/exclusion are successive historical models for the participation of psychic systems in society. From this results the concluding discussion of structural changes in concepts of identity. Identities in modern society are characterized by atomization; they are decoupled from authenticity; they are multiple identities, all of which imply part-time engagements. The network metaphor is interpreted as an apt description of these transformations. All these changes in identity concepts are related to a societal structure in which the participation of persons is particularized by multiple inclusions.
© 2002 by Lucius & Lucius, Stuttgart
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelei
- Contents
- Editorial: Inclusion / Exclusion. Systems Theoretical and Poststructuralist Perspectives
- Patterns of Inclusion and Exclusion: Property, Nation and Religion
- Tristes Tropiques. Systems Theory and the Literary Scene
- A Completely New Politics, or, Excluding the Political? Agamben's Critique of Sovereignty
- Inclusion and Exclusion of the Indian in the Early American Archive
- On Drawing A Line. Politics and the Significatory Logics of Inclusion / Exclusion
- Lenin’s Twist, or the R-Factor of Communication
- Strangers, Inclusions, and Identities
- Fatal Attraction? Popular Modes of Inclusion in the Economic System
- Exclusion Individuality or Individualization by Inclusion?
- Inclusions: Concerning a Theory and Aesthetics of Police
- Zusammenfassungen
- About the contributors
- Inhalt
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelei
- Contents
- Editorial: Inclusion / Exclusion. Systems Theoretical and Poststructuralist Perspectives
- Patterns of Inclusion and Exclusion: Property, Nation and Religion
- Tristes Tropiques. Systems Theory and the Literary Scene
- A Completely New Politics, or, Excluding the Political? Agamben's Critique of Sovereignty
- Inclusion and Exclusion of the Indian in the Early American Archive
- On Drawing A Line. Politics and the Significatory Logics of Inclusion / Exclusion
- Lenin’s Twist, or the R-Factor of Communication
- Strangers, Inclusions, and Identities
- Fatal Attraction? Popular Modes of Inclusion in the Economic System
- Exclusion Individuality or Individualization by Inclusion?
- Inclusions: Concerning a Theory and Aesthetics of Police
- Zusammenfassungen
- About the contributors
- Inhalt
