The representation is produced by an individual, deeply immersed in a socially defined time and space, in an archetypical and imaginary collective mind (of Jungian memory) which preforms every individual experience, because of the transmission of meanings and symbolisms through the memory of mankind.
Social representations are not simply opinions or attitudes, but “cognitive systems, ingenuous theories or branches of knowledge that we use to discover and organize reality” (Palmonari, 1980).
Stereotype comes from the secondary process, leant as it is towards the outer world to define and classify it. Icon descends from the primary process; desires and drives, also in their conflicting aspects, belong to it. According to these characteristics, icon displace itself from a representation to another, through an imaginary web, made partly by the individual personal history and partly by the social signification. Icon refers to the narrative memory of men, made by a con-fusion of images, contrary to the stereotypical simplification of words.
The core of the representation of the foreigner is his icon; it sums up several aspects: the other one, the stranger, is also immigrant, ill, homosexual; it means runaway, choice and hospitality all at the same time. It includes conflicting elements, not always negative; everyone of us has a quote of strangerness, and it regards more likely seeking shelter and protection, than boundary violation of the other one’s spaces. Thinking about the foreigner’s icon means thinking of a man who ventures on a journey to find another sense to his uniqueness.
Mechanisms used by the ruling group to construct the representation of the dominated one are mainly devaluation and inversion (Chombart de Lauwe, 1984), by which the other one is depreciated to the extreme, till his physical and cultural features become diametrically opposite to mine (Mantovani, 1996), no matter if the results are far from reality.
The heightening of these mechanisms may lead to represent the features of the other one as real ‘monstrosities’, in its very meaning of deformity, being discordant from the form we are used to (Attili, 1996). ‘Monstrosity’ is linked to the impossibility to signify what cannot be signified.
* This text is the abstract of the paper presented by prof. Gioacchino Lavanco to the conference "Memories of the Future" (Palermo, 28-29 November 2008)