Concept in Definition ABC
Miscellanea / / November 13, 2021
By Cecilia Bembibre, in Jan. 2012
The term outsider is a term that is used to designate those people who do not belong to a community, who are not from it, and who, for example, come from another country, from abroad.
Foreign individual who comes to a community and is often seen as a threat
This situation produces that these individuals do not know the uses and traditions of the place where they arrive and then they take them as individuals, or even strangers, and produce a certain distrust.
Usually the stranger can be perceived as a danger for having a different lifestyle, different ways of communicating, acting, etc.
Use in American Western movies where criminals or fugitives from justice are depicted
The term is used much more in American-type fiction to talk about those people who come to a community lost in the west and who can be dangerous because they are criminals, murderers or fugitives from some crime.
Although its use in common language is not so common, it is correct to use it as well.
The word outsider comes from the Latin term foras which means outside and which is also the one that derives outside.
In this sense, the word outsider will then refer to everything that is external to a community or society.
The idea of a stranger exists from the very moment the idea of society appears.
This is so because when a group of people decide to get together to live together, sharing certain elements, there will always be elements that are foreign to that group by definition.
Thus, if a society is characterized by having certain cultural traits, traditions, language, history, etc., everything that does not represent that group of manifestations with which the members of the community feel identified will then be considered something strange, different and possibly dangerous.
Xenophobia: fear of the foreigner who arrives, it is not known for sure why ...
From this we can say then that the notion of xenophobia or racism, which has to do with discriminating against everyone, may arise in more exaggerated and exacerbated cases. that is different from oneself and from the community in which one lives not so much because it is justified but because of fear or fear of what that other person represents: what a stranger.
Xenophobia consists of exclusion and discrimination that is exercised on another person and that is based on the fact of presenting a color, race, origin, different from that of the majority, and therefore he is not considered an equal, leaving his freedoms and rights totally severed.
The word precisely has a Greek origin that refers to fear of the foreigner and implies a attitude of rejection towards those people who come from the outside only for the fact of supposing that they imply a danger when his intentions are unknown, that is, why he comes to our place, to threaten our tranquility...
It should be noted that this rejection and discrimination usually manifests itself through indifference but also through violent physical attacks that can cause severe damage to people who receive.
As a consequence of the above, in many laws around the world xenophobia is considered a plausible offense of criminal punishment.
The figure of the stranger is part of the tradition American in times when civilization The West was beginning to settle on moorlands formerly inhabited by native Indians.
As these communities are lost in the middle of the desert or open spaces, always the arrival of strangers to the community, indigenous as well as white individuals, could represent a danger because it represents a possible threat to the peace and quiet of the village or community in question.
In films that portray the American Wild West or Far West, and that are framed within the gender of the western, it is very common to find the archetype of the stranger, which precisely brings together many of the characteristics already mentioned for this subject and this question that We described the mistrust that the arrival of someone who is not a native of the place tends to arouse in these remote communities, it is always appreciated as a concrete threat and it is sought fight it.
These characters usually appear suddenly in the bars or inns of the town, where they come to have something fresh or to get in touch with someone, in Therefore, this distrust tends to trigger fights with the regulars at those bars, who are dangerous and marginal characters of those communities.
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