On Checking the Box Marked “Other”: The Meaning and Political Horizon of the Body as a Multicultural Other

Abstract

Straus's (1966/1980) seminal essay “The Upright Posture” offers a rich description for how becoming physically upright as a species has opened new mobile, free, and variable ways of being-in-the-world. However, the absence of color in Straus's account highlights the unreflective invisibility of whiteness. Using Fanon's (1952/2001) “The Lived Experience of the Black” as a point of departure, it is argued that the lived body is overdetermined by one's skin color within interpersonal interactions. An anthropology without some articulation of political culture is blind to essential differences in multicultural society, and being deemed “Other” carries a historical and political burden that dramatically influences the person's phenomenological orientation and being-in-the-world. The differences of these lived experiences will provide new horizons for understanding Straus's “The Upright Posture.”

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Notes on contributors

José Arroyo

José Arroyo is a doctoral student in the psychology department at Duquesne University. His research interests focus on providing phenomenological interpretations of minority and GLBT identity and experience.