Globalization, which circulates not only goods and labor but also cultural and religious identities; the emergence of Islamic fundamentalism on the global stage amidst migration processes that relativize the external/internal dimensions of the phenomenon; immigrants perceived as factors of insecurity; the crisis of democracy, caught between the national dimension of decision-making and the global scale of phenomena; the impact between the global and the local, between flows and places; the end of the twentieth-century "grand narratives"; and the new configurations of international relations. These are just some of the causes that produce a widespread perception of the Other as a factor of disintegration and conflict. This outcome, which overturns the dominant discourse of the second half of the twentieth century characterized by openness and inclusion, a universalist view of rights, and a cosmopolitan outlook, is also driven by worldviews and political cultures that seek a secure refuge in the national or local horizon, in appeals to uniform identity, cultural or religious, and in the reconstruction of the “impossible community.” This reversal of the image of the Other, its radical transformation into a factor of conflict, is central to the reflection on the theme of the Other and conflict.
