Immigrant, a strange place

the relationship with the formation of the self in diversity

Abstract

The author examines the immigrant’s place in the formation of the self in diversity. It maintains that there is a difference between plurality and diversity. Stresses that the existence of plurality and diversity favors coexistence, while diversity, instead of being taken as opportunities to enrich our interpersonal relationships, can become a reason for intolerance, conflict, violence and serious violations of human rights. It exemplifies the violence and the non-inclusion process through the work The painted bird by Jerzy Kosinski, which relates to what happened during Nazism. The author considers the counterpart of this social situation in the individual psyche with what Freud describes in The uncanny (1919) where the presence of another leads to the appearance of familiar elements that were repressed and projected onto this other, agent of horror and representative of death. It illustrates this situation with a brief clinical example of an immigrant. Finally, it draws attention to Levinas’ proposition that the maintenance of otherness as a way of allowing our mind to be fertilized by the other, thus creating a place for the foreigner in the construction of his self in otherness.