For a long time western people deemed themselves as particularly independent and autonomous. Hence they considered people from other cultures as caught in familial, social, cultural, economic, religious, and political constraints. In his essays Burkhard Schnepel questions these images of the other as well as the western people’s self-images and challenges the accompanying contortions of the ‘exotic’ and ‘oriental’ other. He examines the different manifestations and types of persons in Africa, India, and the area of the Indian Ocean. Beside kings, jesters, and dreamers he also puts dancers and tourists in the focus of his ethnological studies.
