Doctoral Degrees (Philosophy)

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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (Philosophy) by Subject "Belonging (Social psychology)"

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    Stories of us and them : Xenophobia and political narratives
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University., 2020-03) Cilliers, Judy-Ann; Roodt, Vasti; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Philosophy.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation aims to make sense of xenophobia as a specific idea of belonging and exclusion based on the idea of foreignness. I provide a conceptual and normative framework to help us understand xenophobia in terms of its origins, expressions, moral harms, and effects. The secondary aim of this dissertation is to determine how our individual and political identities contribute to individual xenophobic prejudices and acts of discrimination, as well as the construction and upholding of a xenophobic social and political order. Towards this latter aim I argue for a narrative conception of identity, and show how narratives can be xenophobic, but how they can also be conducive to creating a non-xenophobic world. To achieve these dual aims, my argument is worked out in five phases. Firstly, I distinguish xenophobia from racism, arguing that xenophobia differs in its origins and in its effect, which also constitutes its moral harm. The harm in xenophobia lies in a specific form of civic ostracism that excludes particular groups from benefits of civic membership based on ascriptions of foreignness that in turn is based on ideas about belonging. Secondly, I show that xenophobia’s origins lie in our ideas about foreignness and belonging, and it manifests in the prejudices that result from ingroup-outgroup differentiation. This is a response to the fear we feel in the face of strangers and the unfamiliar, a remnant of our evolutionary history. I suggest that in our early days as a species, antagonism toward the outgroup gave the ingroup the evolutionary advantage. Xenophobia is therefore a reaction to insecurity about our place and existence in the world, and the third phase of my argument considers place, belonging, and the harms of displacement. These themes are approached from the perspective of the xenophobe and the victim of xenophobia. Regarding the former, I show how a sense of the precariousness of one’s own belonging can lead one to seek belonging in the false home offered by nationalism and other exclusionary identities and groupings, with xenophobic discrimination as the result. This excludes the victim of xenophobia from the possibility of belonging, making them vulnerable to the particular harms of displacement. The fourth phase considers the narrative theory of identity, connecting our sense of belonging to our identities and to the narratives we tell about ourselves, our groups, outsiders, and the places we are situated in. The narratives we share and the identities which result from them can be more or less xenophobic, and in the final phase of this dissertation I analyse xenophobic narratives and provide directions that counternarratives can follow to counter xenophobia, on the institutional and individual level. A novel direction for implementing such narratives is provided, inspired by xenophobia’s origins in human evolution: playing and games, strategies which are conducive to relationship formation and collaboration. If xenophobia is a response to apprehensions of belonging, as this dissertation argues, a solution to xenophobia needs to be found rethinking our identities, our place in the world, and in promoting trust and collaboration.