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The Indian self and the others: Individual and collective identities in India
Das indische Selbst und die Anderen: Individuelle und kollektive Identitäten in Indien
[journal article]
Abstract Starting from the influential Western tradition of constructing “Asia” and the “Asians” as distinctively different from “Europe” and the “Europeans,” the author discusses how theories about the “self” have proven to be constitutive for culture-specific understandings of the self and the other in one... view more
Starting from the influential Western tradition of constructing “Asia” and the “Asians” as distinctively different from “Europe” and the “Europeans,” the author discusses how theories about the “self” have proven to be constitutive for culture-specific understandings of the self and the other in one’s own and in foreign societies. By contrasting some of the main characteristics of “Western” views of Asians with Hindu and Buddhist theories about the self, he then shows how the tendency to construct “Asians” as distinct others has resulted in many Western scholars’ failure a) to understand key aspects of Indian self-theories and b) to do justice to the vast spectrum of traditions of Indian and Asian thought that do not conceive of Asia as a more or less homogenous cultural sphere. Finally, the author discusses how a more thorough analysis of intercultural and intracultural self-theories can shed light on the crucial sociological and psychological role such theories can play in the history and politics of intercultural encounters as well as on the factors involved in India’s and other society’s ongoing effort to achieve a collective identity.... view less
Keywords
Buddhism; Hinduism; India; ethnocentrism; self-concept; intercultural comparison; intercultural factors; collective identity; Asian; Western world; self-image
Classification
Ethnology, Cultural Anthropology, Ethnosociology
Cultural Sociology, Sociology of Art, Sociology of Literature
Free Keywords
Identity, Self-concept, Buddhism, Hinduism, India, Ethnocentrism, Othering
Document language
English
Publication Year
2010
Page/Pages
p. 1-23
Journal
Taiwan Journal of East Asian Studies, 7 (2010) 2
Status
Published Version; reviewed