Cannibalizing the “Others:” Metropolitan Time Intellectual Journeys in Debate

The present book chapter brings some critical reflections on the archetypes the “Non-Western Other” constructed in the West. The piece explores not only the philosophical dichotomies of discoveries as well as the role played by science (ethnography in particular) but also in capital expansion. Today, the colonial voyages which educated and entertained a vast readership in Europe set the pace to a new landscape where national borders have been extended. In this global world, the “Other” is not an object of study any longer, but rather, an enemy who should be avoided. We place some leading voices in the fields of sociology and philosophy into the foreground. In so doing, we try to create a bridge between British sociology and French philosophy. Both schools agree that technology has played an important place speeding time journeys, but at the same time, it has eradicated the presence of alterity.