Exiles: condemned people to perpetual alterity

Abstract

The exile suffers from perpetual alterity because he’s always considered “another” anywhere in the world. He lives a cultural interbreeding resulting from his roots’ cultural baggage with the social-cultural practices of the asylum land. The exile – differently to simple emigration – never was a light or desired thing because of its exclusion, elimination and punishment character. This one results in a traumatism, a loss feeling to the exile that the common migrant doesn't necessarily feel in the same proportion. The removal from his homeland causes the anonymity and consequently an identity crisis that creates a loss sensation - that appears in psychoanalysis as the mother's death just like the mourning. Even when the end of the exile becomes a reality, the ";former-exile"; continues suffering some culture shocks in his homeland, in other words, he still is “another”, he continues to be the “other”.

Keywords: exile, national identity, alterity, Angola, cultural interbreeding.