Strangers, Inclusions, and Identities

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 As all these three characteristics are no longer valid in modern society, the paper postulates that the sociology of the stranger and the analytics of inclusion/exclusion are successive historical models for the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.

Inclusion and Exclusion—A Guiding Distinction to the Understanding of Issues of Cultural Background

“…Identities are, as is established in sociology, both multiple and changeable (e.g. Stichweh, ; Clegg, Kornberger & Pitsis, ).…”

“…Following Stichweh's () proposition, I argue in this article for the use of inclusion and exclusion as a guiding distinction of the analysis of social affiliation in general and on the analysis of issues of ethnic and national background in particular . In Luhmann's sociological systems theory, the theory of inclusion and exclusion is a part of the theory of society.…”

“…In accordance with Koselleck, Luhmann () introduces the concept of semantics to denote such a guiding notion of meaning, which is stabilized over time in society, in part like the notion of tradition of thought. In line with this idea, Stichweh () argues that for a long time, there has been a need for a change of semantics and that we have to deal with two types of analyses and two semantics of social affiliation. On the one hand, there is the briefly mentioned semantics focusing on integration.…”

“…In connection with issues of cultural background, the ‘multicultural’ and global society, the sociology of the stranger has seen renewed interest from several approaches during the last decades. This is also the case within systems theory (Stichweh, ; Stichweh ; Stichweh ). In literary contexts as well as in the social sciences, the figure of the stranger was established long ago.…”

Debating Humanity

“…9 But before we can fully appreciate what is at stake here, and 8 This possibility of full inclusion is also central to Parsons and Luhmann's 'standard' arguments on functional differentiation (Stichweh 2008). See also, in Chapter 3, Parsons's argument on the evolutionary importance of cultural universalism.…”