Perception of a Strangeness as an Inner Barrier of Integration

This work deals with the question whether the way one understands his strangeness can influence possibility of integrating migrants into the majority. The work presents some theories of personal and ethnical identity in the tradition of social constructivism. In these theories the identity is usually constructed in the opposition to strange or other, but can strange or other be the basis for the construction of one's identity? This problem is approached from the stand point of the basic sociological theories of stranger (Simmel, Schütz, Park, Siu, Bauman). Based on these theories this work argues that stranger can be an identity. The following analysis of in-depth interviews shows if and how is identity of stranger manifested in everyday life of migrants