Self–Other

The constitution of self and its relation to others is one of the core problems addressed by the social sciences. Within human geography, this dialectic is often accompanied by spatial markers of self, such as here and there, inside and outside, and us and them. Self is conscious of itself, an active biography that tries to answer the question “who am I?” Self is reflexive both of the constructing categories of society and the reciprocity, constituting social relations but also of the histories that have contributed to any coherence or essentialism that constructs the self. This reflexivity is not the same thing as individualization or a self-mastery but instead is as an active ability to reflect back one's identity, life-paths, and conscious membership of different identity categories. Reflexivity toward dimensions of both time and space can make a conceptualization self difficult, since self is constituted by the experiences and memories of the individual, conditioned by others, the norms of society and place with its human and non-human actors. While the act of othering often includes a power imbalance that overshadows difference within the other, it can be concluded that other is a condition of the self without ontological stability.