Between Transdifference and Reflected Positionality. Conceptual Distinctions regarding the Educational Handling of Religious Difference

Abstract

The article examines the effectiveness of concepts such as foreignness, otherness, transculturality, and transdifference in dealing with religious difference. In view of religious plurality, transdifference should be understood both as overcoming differences that are detrimental to life and as maintaining differences that are conducive to life at a higher level. This gives rise to the demand for a reflective positionality that students should develop at university and that allows them to perceive the differences between religions as a possible enrichment of societies. With regard to the didactics of interreligious learning, it is important to use the concept of transdifference to break down binary patterns of order and to shed more light on the dynamic processes of transdifferential spaces.