The Paradox of Difference

Moving Beyond Border Crossing, Translanguaging, and Unit Thinking

Neriko Musha Doerr (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

182 Seiten

2025
Berghahn Books (Verlag)
978-1-83695-311-1 (ISBN)

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Exploring five paradoxes in how “difference” is constructed and navigated, this book critically examines discourse and practice across race studies, language education, and global mobility, offering fresh insights into the politics of difference and possibilities for alternative engagements.

Sociocultural environments prompt us to notice and mark certain differences over others. This book investigates five paradoxes in the discourses and practices around such differences: the paradox of mixing, standardization, narrative, proximity, and tolerance. Drawing on the notion of unit thinking, it explores how perceived differences emerge fluidly in specific contexts. Through critical analyses of race studies, language education, global education/study abroad, and volunteer/service work, the book examines how these fields build on or capitalize on pre-conceived differences. It opens up discussions for new understandings of differences that challenge essentialist framings and inform alternative practices.

Neriko Musha Doerr is Adjunct Professor at Ramapo College. Her publications include Fairies, Ghosts, and Santa Claus (Berghhahn, 2022), Transforming Study Abroad: A Handbook (Berghahn, 2020), The Global Education Effect and Japan: Constructing New Borders and Identification Practices (Routledge, 2020).

Introduction: The Paradox of Difference

Chapter 1. The Paradox of Mixing and Border Crossing: A Necessary Reliance on Unit Thinking

Chapter 2. The Paradox of Standardization: Normative Unit Thinking and Its Simultaneous Homogenization and Hierarchical Differentiation

Chapter 3. The Paradox of Narrative: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of the New and the Different

Chapter 4. The Paradox of Proximity: Subject Position Proximity and the Oppositional Articulation of Difference

Chapter 5. The Paradox of Tolerance: Cultural Relativism, Othering, and “Seeing Difference in Similarity”

Conclusion: Challenging Paradoxes of Difference toward Post-Unit Thinking

Glossary

References

Index

Erscheinungsdatum	18.11.2025
Zusatzinfo	Bibliography; Index
Verlagsort	Oxford
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Themenwelt	Schulbuch / Wörterbuch ► Wörterbuch / Fremdsprachen
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Sprachwissenschaft
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Allgemeines / Lexika
ISBN-10	1-83695-311-9 / 1836953119
ISBN-13	978-1-83695-311-1 / 9781836953111
Zustand	Neuware