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Long Abstract
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This panel will be dedicated to set out the shape of the debate on the otherness. The contacts with the others have been dominated either by wars, or negotiations or separation. The symbol of the last type of the I/the Other relationship has been the wall building practice all over the world in different historical moments; in the past (the gates and towers of the Babylon, the Great Wall of China, the limes of the Roman Empire, etc.) and the actual fencing off practices: the walls on Mexican-US, Poland-Bielorussia, Israel-Palestina, Spain-Marrocan borders, among others). The study of walls assumes and implies a study of otherness and the construction of walls as an intentional practice carried out by the states. They can be real or imagined and usually they are entwinned with war and conflict. They can be a strategy after the negotiations failed, be a substitute of war, be one of its causes or one of its consecuences. The walls have ambiguous status in relation to who is a builder of the walls and who is the other on the other side of the wall. The both present their narratives. According to builder’s narratives the walls separate and protect us from different kinds of Others (‘barbarians’, ‘migrants’, ‘invaders’, ‘savages’ or ‘terrorists’). According to the narratives of those walled off the walls are piled up by the rich and mighty to opress, degrade, discriminate, isolate and exclude. The speakers will be invited to present the case for studies, reflex theoretically on the otherness and analyse the walls building practice as a state´s public strategy.
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