Othering

Othering is a strategy that reinforces the mainstream by differentiating individuals and groups and relegating them to the margins according to a range of socially constructed categories. Othering occurs via a wide range of practices from language differentiation to geographical assignation, native/nonnative status (despite legal citizenship), and photographic and filmic techniques that foreground and center some characters while backgrounding and obscuring others. As a keyword, othering is articulated to concepts such as marginalization, bordering, iconization, ethnicity, ghettoization, globalization, and social difference, while symbolic annihilation, glass ceiling, spiral of silence, and in-group out-group are all findings within media studies that further document ongoing processes of othering.