TY - JOUR
T1 - Reflections on strangeness in context
T2 - The case of Russian-Jewish immigrants in the kibbutz
AU - Rapoport, Tamar
AU - Lomsky-Feder, Edna
PY - 2001
Y1 - 2001
N2 - This article elucidates and elaborates upon the contextualized meaning of strangeness and the experience of being a stranger. Our empirical study of strangeness embarks simultaneously from the three leading theories of the stranger - as cultural reader (Schuetz 1944), as demarcalor of social boundaries (Simmel 1950), and as trespasser of social categories (Bauman 1990, 1991) - and at the same time criticizes these theories for artificially divesting strangeness of social context. Our thesis about strangeness-in-context is grounded in in-depth interviews we conducted with Jewish-Russian immigrants (twenty-one university students) who have lived in kibbutzim. Our assumption is that the kibbutz as a "communal home" is a suitable case study to illuminate the manyfold dimensions of strangeness, as it intensifies the tension between insiders and outsiders. In explicating the immigrant's sense of strangeness we claim the local context of the kibbutz interacts with the Israeli national definition of the immigrant as a homecomer.
AB - This article elucidates and elaborates upon the contextualized meaning of strangeness and the experience of being a stranger. Our empirical study of strangeness embarks simultaneously from the three leading theories of the stranger - as cultural reader (Schuetz 1944), as demarcalor of social boundaries (Simmel 1950), and as trespasser of social categories (Bauman 1990, 1991) - and at the same time criticizes these theories for artificially divesting strangeness of social context. Our thesis about strangeness-in-context is grounded in in-depth interviews we conducted with Jewish-Russian immigrants (twenty-one university students) who have lived in kibbutzim. Our assumption is that the kibbutz as a "communal home" is a suitable case study to illuminate the manyfold dimensions of strangeness, as it intensifies the tension between insiders and outsiders. In explicating the immigrant's sense of strangeness we claim the local context of the kibbutz interacts with the Israeli national definition of the immigrant as a homecomer.
KW - Homecoming
KW - Immigration
KW - Kibbutz
KW - Strangeness
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=34247735543&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1023/A:1012293013945
DO - 10.1023/A:1012293013945
M3 - ???researchoutput.researchoutputtypes.contributiontojournal.article???
AN - SCOPUS:34247735543
SN - 0162-0436
VL - 24
SP - 483
EP - 506
JO - Qualitative Sociology
JF - Qualitative Sociology
IS - 4
ER -