The hybrid stranger and intercultural hermeneutics

The category of the stranger has experienced a renaissance in contemporary social theory. Within this burgeoning literature, a new conceptualisation has emerged known as the 'in-between stranger' or the 'hybrid of modernity'. The formulation of this stranger has raised epistemological concerns. Not only can the hybrid expose the misunderstanding between Self and Other or between two life-worlds, it is able to transcend the self/other dichotomy. The unresolved hermeneutic problem -the meeting with strangers -results in uncertainty, in particular uncertainty about how to read and respond to unfamiliar social situations. What is interesting is not the fact that misunderstanding occurs between the host and the stranger, but that the stranger's physical nearness and social distance fosters an interpretative view of the world that is not accessible to either the host (Self) or parent group (Other). The position of hybrid strangers purportedly encourages a critical and 'objective' stance that transcends conventional and 'situated' knowledge. The discourse on 'the stranger', beginning with Simmel, has constructed the hybrid stranger as disinterested third party. This in-between, third position allows hybrid strangers to see things more clearly and/or differently than those occupying opposing positions or cultural perspectives. In this paper I critically examine the nature of this third type of consciousness and its association with the idea of the intercultural.