We examined the links between moral identity—the centrality of moral principles to identity—and political purpose during emerging adulthood. We analyzed data from two waves of a longitudinal study of civic purpose. T1 surveys were collected before high school graduation and T2 survey were collected two years later. We categorized people (N = 1,578 at T1 and N = 480 at T2) into political purpose groups based on the person-centered perspective and then performed multinomial logistic regression analysis to (...) test whether moral identity was associated with categories of political purpose. The findings from our study indicate that moral identity at T1 is linked with the maintenance and formation of T2 political purpose. (shrink)

Based on the ongoing work of the agenda-setting Future of Minority Studies national research project, Identity Politics Reconsidered reconceptualizes the scholarly and political significance of social identity. It focuses on the deployment of “identity” within ethnic-, women’s-, disability-, and gay and lesbian studies in order to stimulate discussion about issues that are simultaneously theoretical and practical, ranging from ethics and epistemology to political theory and pedagogical practice. This collection of powerful essays by both well-known and (...) emerging scholars offers original answers to questions concerning the analytical legitimacy of “identity” and “experience,” and the relationships among cultural autonomy, moral universalism, and progressive politics. (shrink)

Continuing her visionary work in social-political philosophy, Zack critiques identity politics as perpetuating damaging essentialist perspectives and policies. The antidote to identity group egoism is anonymity based on relevant shared interests and a meritocracy led by experts chosen without preference for group affiliation or political charisma.

Identity is a concept that evolves over the course of life. Identity develops over time and can evolve, sometimes drastically; depending on what directions we take in our life. In the age of globalization, a human being is more aware than old times regarding his community, social and national affairs. A person who identifies himself as part of a particular political party, of a particular faith, and who sees himself as upper-middle class, might discover that in later age, (...) he's a very different person. Perhaps he's no longer interested in politics, he's changed his religion, and he's living on less money than when he was in his younghood. Any variation is possible during a person's life span. -/- Religious Identity: A person's religious identity is the name of the religion that they identify themselves with. In this society people want to know, "What religion are you?" Generally they expect a one-word answer with the name of a religion that expresses their religious identity. A person might say they are a Buddhist - or a Christian - or a Jew - or a Muslim - or a Hindu. These are examples of religious identities. Recent developments in the field of social sciences in general and sociology in particular suggest a gradual tendency towards revival of interest on the issue of religion and identity. It is plausible that religion and identity may be positively correlated. The link between religion and identity can be contextualized through the exploration of the self. -/- Identity Politics: Identity politics is a political style that focuses on the issues relevant to various groups defined by a wide variety of shared characteristics, including, but not limited to, race, social class, religion, sex, gender, ethnicity, ideology, nationality, sexual orientation, gender expression, culture, currency, shared history, medical conditions, profession, and other of the many ways in which people differ from each other, and into which they may be classified or classify themselves. This concept played an important role in shaping social and national sphere. -/- Social Justice: Social justice denotes the equal treatment of all citizens without any social distinction based on caste, colour, race, religion, sex and so on. It means absence of privileges being extended to any particular section of the society, and improvement in the conditions of backward classes (SCs, STs, and OBCs) and women. Social Justice is the foundation stone of Indian Constitution. Indian Constitution makers were well known to the use and minimality of various principles of justice. Social justice found useful for everyone in its kind and flexible form. -/- Although social justice is not defined anywhere in the constitution but it is an ideal element of feeling which is a goal of constitution. Feeling of social justice is a form of relative concept that is changeable by the time, circumstances, culture and ambitions of the people. Social inequalities of India expect solution equally. Under Indian Constitution the use of social justice is accepted in wider sense, which includes social and economical justice both. -/- The major objective of this paper is to critical analyze all the above mentioned conceptions and see their relation with reference to a national character building as the present scenario of India showed a identity crisis between individual’s religious identity and secular objectives of the constitutions. The negative effect of the identity politics ruin ideal nation’s character and negatively affects the concept of social justice too. For a better nation we should a balanced state of affairs where every citizen has a space to develop him/her self and a motivation to contribute in development of India. -/- Note : This is submitted for a Three-Day Philosophy Teachers' Meet of North-Western Zone sponsored by ICPR, New Delhi to be organized by the Department of Guru Nanak Studies, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar on 29th to 31st Dec. 2015 with the theme "The Crisis of Multiple Identities in Contemporary World" . (shrink)

Events in recent years have underscored the dependence of the liberal international order (LIO) on the domestic fate of liberalism in countries like the United States—where, according to critics such as Mark Lilla and Francis Fukuyama, liberals have imperiled themselves through an unwise embrace of identity politics. These critics argue that identity politics undermines solidarity and empowers the illiberal right, and that it should be rejected in favor of a unifying creedal nationalism based on common (...) liberal values. This analysis, I argue, overlooks the fact that “common” creedal values have expanded in American history when their meanings were being controversially reinterpreted from identity-based perspectives. If American liberalism is to emerge from its current crisis, it will need to incorporate the claims of identity into a sense of national belonging that can resist the authoritarian, ethnoracial nationalism promoted by the LIO's enemies. The likelihood that such a process will be controversial is reason for liberal critics of identity politics to consider how the claims of identity might be an asset, not an obstacle, to revitalizing liberal democracy against its challengers. (shrink)

Who am I, and what am I? These questions are asked through the ages, and answered in various ways in disciplines ranging from philosphy through literature and politics to biology. It is a matter of personal and practical as well as intellectual interest, and perhaps for this reason academic debate on this subject attracts attention and stimulates controversy outside the ranks of the specialists. In Identity six internationally famous contributors, Bernard Williams, Derek Parfit, Henry Harris, Michael Ruse, Terence (...) Cave, and Anthony D. Smith, discuss identity from the viewpoints of their various disciplines. The book offers a comparison and cross-fertilization of insights and theories from outside and within philosophy, shedding light on this concept crucial to the humanities and the social and physical sciences. (shrink)

This paper draws on the cultural-materialist paradigm articulated by Raymond Williams to offer a radical historicisation of identity and identity-politics in capitalist societies. A keywords analysis reveals surprisingly that identity, as it is elaborated in the familiar categories of personal and social identity, is a relatively novel concept in Western thought, politics and culture. The claim is not the standard one that people’s ‘identities’ became more important and apparent in advanced capitalist societies, but that (...) identity itself came to operate as a new and key mechanism for construing, shaping and narrating experiences of selfhood and grouphood in this period. From a cultural-materialist perspective, the emergence and evolution of this idea of identity can only be properly understood in relation to the social contexts of its use, namely, the new contexts of consumption of capitalist societies, and the development of new forms of group-based struggle from the 1960s. What the analysis shows is that it was the commercialisation and politicisation of older essentialist understandings of selfhood and grouphood in these contexts that has given rise to the concepts of personal and social identity as we know them today.By exploring the material conditions that have given rise to the contemporary powerful attachment to ‘identity’, this paper offers a new point of departure from which to pursue many issues of concern to critical theorists and radical activists today, including the conflict over identity politics in radical circles, the historical and social processes behind their development and at least partial co-option, and their relation to neoliberal political-economic formations today. (shrink)

Despite changes to research and practice, that, to some degree, acknowledge that people are shaped by their contexts, the treatment of mental illness remains largely focused on interventions that take place at the level of the individual. Conceptualizing mental illness as something that resides in individuals can lead to reliance on neurobiological and psychotherapeutic solutions, and away from conversations about not only contextual causes of mental distress, but also sociopolitical solutions to mental distress. Further, it can lead to the use (...) of mental health interventions that focus on the biology of an individual without a consideration for how those interventions themselves may have psychological, social, or political consequences that act to shape an individual's identity, agency, and relationship to their community. This paper examines one medicolegal intervention, the community treatment order, using the philosophical work of Grosz and Foucault to consider how this intervention affects the experience and construction of identity, and the impact of this on an individual's sense of agential membership in a community. This discussion aims to increase understanding of the individual and social implications of interventions for mental illness, and provide a conceptualization of the relationship between identity, agency, and ethics which can inform critical research and nursing practice more broadly. (shrink)

Resentment is not so much based upon the diversity of cultural and other identities but often rooted in grievances, complaints, and memories of historical conflicts that groups hold against other groups. Using examples from Central and Eastern Europe, this article argues that the viability of liberal democratic welfare states in Europe depends upon a minimum of toleration, trust, and solidarity among citizens. It is these cultural underpinnings of democracy which are threatened by historically rooted and (often strategically activated) feelings (...) of resentment. (shrink)

Amartya Sen argues that sectarian discord and violence are fueled by confusion about the nature of identity, including the pervasive tendency to see ourselves as members of singular social groups standing in opposition to other groups (e.g. Democrat vs. Republican, Muslim vs. Christian, etc.). Sen defends an alternative model of identity, according to which we all inevitably belong to a plurality of discrete identity groups (including ethnicities, classes, genders, races, religions, careers, hobbies, etc.) and are obligated to (...) choose, in any given context, which among our multiple affiliations to prioritize. While Sen’s model of discrete identity prioritization is a clear advance over single-factor accounts, it overlooks significant lessons about identity from over 150 years of scholarship by feminists of color. In ignoring the experiences of women of color, Sen’s model falsely assumes that identities are in-principle separable for the purposes of practical deliberation; and, in obligating individuals to make such identity-based “reasoned choices,” Sen’s model forces those with multiply marginalized identities to choose from a set of externally defined identity options, none of which sufficiently captures their experiences. (shrink)

Identity politics deployed by lesbian feminists of color challenges the philosophy of the subject and white feminisms based on sisterhood, and in so doing opens a space where feminist coalition building is possible. I articulate connections between Gloria Anzaldúa's epistemological-political action tools of complex identity narration and mestiza form of intersubject, Nancy Hartsock's feminist materialist standpoint, and Seyla Benhabib's standpoint of intersubjectivity in relation to using feminist identity politics for feminist coalition politics.

In an age when "we are all multiculturalists now," as Nathan Glazer has said, the politics of identity has come to pose new challenges to our liberal polity and the presuppositions on which it is founded. Just what identity means, and what its role in the public sphere is, are questions that are being hotly debated. In this book Susan Hekman aims to bring greater theoretical clarity to the debate by exposing some basic misconceptions—about the constitution of (...) the self that defines personal identity, about the way liberalism conceals the importance of identity under the veil of the "abstract citizen," and about the difference and interrelationship between personal and public identity. Hekman’s use of object relations theory allows her to argue, against the postmodernist resort to a "fictive" subject, for a core self that is socially constructed in the early years of childhood but nevertheless provides a secure base for the adult subject. Such a self is social, particular, embedded, and connected—a stark contrast to the neutral and disembodied subject posited in liberal theory. This way of construing the self also opens up the possibility for distinguishing how personal identity functions in relation to public identity. Against those advocates of identity politics who seek reform through the institutionalization of group participation, Hekman espouses a vision of the politics of difference that eschews assigning individuals to fixed groups and emphasizes instead the fluidity of choice arising from the complex interaction between the individual’s private identity and the multiple opportunities for associating with different groups and the public identities they define. Inspired by Foucault’s argument that "power is everywhere," Hekman maps out a dual strategy of both political and social/cultural resistance for this new politics of identity, which recognizes that with significant advances already won in the political/legal arena, attitudinal change in civil society presents the greatest challenge for achieving more progress today in the struggle against racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression. (shrink)

In this paper, Weir reconsiders identity politics and their relation to feminist solidarity. She argues that the dimension of identity as “identification-with” has been the liberatory dimension of identity politics, and that this dimension has been overshadowed and displaced by a focus on identity as category. Weir addresses critiques of identification as a ground of solidarity, and sketches a model of identity and identity politics based not in sameness, but in (...) transformative historical process. (shrink)

In this paper, Weir reconsiders identity politics and their relation to feminist solidarity. She argues that the dimension of identity as “identification-with” has been the liberatory dimension of identity politics, and that this dimension has been overshadowed and displaced by a focus on identity as category. Weir addresses critiques of identification as a ground of solidarity, and sketches a model of identity and identity politics based not in sameness, but in (...) transformative historical process. (shrink)

This book claims that there is a negativity at the core of all social articulations that provides the basis for a universal politics. Drawing principally on the work of Slavoj Žižek, the book suggests that the social is punctured by an impossibility-an incompletion-which rather than serving as a barrier to politics, lays a foundation for shared struggle. The book thus argues for a negative universality, rooted not in a positive element (e.g., identity-based politics) but a (...) discordant one, so that under our current global capitalist system, solidarity is to be forged on the basis of social antagonism (i.e., shared experiences of exploitation and marginalization). Such a conception of shared struggle avoids the trap of both a neocolonial universalism (e.g., the rights of white men parading as universal rights) and the narrow particularism of identity-based politics. Most importantly, it foregrounds the struggles of the systematically dispossessed and excluded (the permanently unemployed, migrants, refugees, sweatshop laborers, etc.), who stand as symptom of our global capitalist order. The book compares "negative universality" with four competing contemporary versions of universalism-conservative, liberal, postcolonial, and Marxist. It also brings "negative universality" into dialogue with present-day critics of universalism-postmodernists, post-Marxists, queer theorists, decolonial pluriversalists, and new materialists. Finally, it examines what a universal politics might look like today in the context of such key global sites of struggle as climate change, the refugee crisis, the Palestinian question, Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, Political Islam, workers' struggles, the Bolivian state under Morales, the European Union, and COVID-19. (shrink)

The proliferation of multistakeholder initiatives (MSIs) over the past years has sparked an intense debate on the political role of corporations in the governance of global business conduct. To gain a better understanding of corporate political behavior in multistakeholder governance, this article investigates how firms construct a political identity when participating in MSIs. Based on an in-depth case study of the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh—an MSI established after the collapse of the Rana Plaza garment (...) factory complex in 2013 to improve working conditions in the Bangladeshi garment industry—we introduce the construct of a political CSR (corporate social responsibility) identity (PCSRI) and explore how firms construct their PCSRIs in MSIs. Employing a qualitative, inductive theory-building method, we analyze interviews and archival data to develop a framework that elucidates how companies construct their PCSRIs within a continuum ranging from conservative to progressive. We show that constructing a PCSRI involves enacting specific, yet interrelated, political strategies that are themselves shaped by several forces over time. This article contributes to the literature by providing a political perspective on organizational identity construction that extends the emerging integrative perspective in political corporate social responsibility (PCSR) research. We suggest that MSIs should be conceptualized as inherently political governance mechanisms that are driven by multidirectional and dynamic political processes of identity construction. Our study shows that corporate political engagement in MSIs is a more nuanced and complex phenomenon than presently theorized. (shrink)

José Ortega y Gasset not only expressed his views on subjects such as art or mass culture but he was also one of the promoters and founders of a United Europe which he considered a cultural unity. However, his view on the proper functioning of multicultural societies was as skeptical as his attitude towards the possibility of constructing an unified world that could be based on cultural coexistence of the Western World societies.

In an age when "we are all multiculturalists now," as Nathan Glazer has said, the politics of identity has come to pose new challenges to our liberal polity and the presuppositions on which it is founded. Just what identity means, and what its role in the public sphere is, are questions that are being hotly debated. In this book Susan Hekman aims to bring greater theoretical clarity to the debate by exposing some basic misconceptions—about the constitution of (...) the self that defines personal identity, about the way liberalism conceals the importance of identity under the veil of the "abstract citizen," and about the difference and interrelationship between personal and public identity. Hekman’s use of object relations theory allows her to argue, against the postmodernist resort to a "fictive" subject, for a core self that is socially constructed in the early years of childhood but nevertheless provides a secure base for the adult subject. Such a self is social, particular, embedded, and connected—a stark contrast to the neutral and disembodied subject posited in liberal theory. This way of construing the self also opens up the possibility for distinguishing how personal identity functions in relation to public identity. Against those advocates of identity politics who seek reform through the institutionalization of group participation, Hekman espouses a vision of the politics of difference that eschews assigning individuals to fixed groups and emphasizes instead the fluidity of choice arising from the complex interaction between the individual’s private identity and the multiple opportunities for associating with different groups and the public identities they define. Inspired by Foucault’s argument that "power is everywhere," Hekman maps out a dual strategy of both political and social/cultural resistance for this new politics of identity, which recognizes that with significant advances already won in the political/legal arena, attitudinal change in civil society presents the greatest challenge for achieving more progress today in the struggle against racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression. (shrink)

This paper explores how women and non-binary Latinx Community Workers in Toronto, Canada, negotiate their identities, citizenship practices and politics in relation to settler colonialism and decolonization. We demonstrate how LCWs enact a Latinx decolonial politic of belonging, an alternative way of practicing citizenship that strives to simultaneously challenge both Canadian and Latin American settler colonialism. This can be seen when LCWs refuse to be recognized on white settler terms as “proud Canadians,” and create community-based learning initiatives that (...) incite conversations among everyday Latinx community members around Canada’s settler colonial history and present, Indigenous worldviews, as well as race and settler colonialism in Latin America. We consider how LCWs’ enactments of a Latinx decolonial politic of belonging serve as small, incomplete, but crucial steps towards decolonization. (shrink)

This contribution offers some observations with regard to political identities in a popular movement largely based in the shantytowns of Durban, South Africa. It seeks to examine, via more than a decade of immersion and research, one instance of how popular organisation and mobilisation have been mediated through shifting political identities. It argues that if discourse professionals on the left are to become effective actors it will be necessary to take popular political identities a lot more seriously, and to (...) enable mutually transformative engagement between theory and actually-existing forms of popular striving and struggle. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to carve out a political understanding of the Muslim identity. The Muslim identity is shaped within a religious mold. Inseparable from this religious understanding is a political one that is valuable in its own right in order to secure any sustainable possibility of participating politically as Muslims within a democratic liberal democracy, such as the United States. Here I explore not the historical or theological formation of the Muslim identity, rather a (...) metaphysical understanding of it, in order to mobilize politically while avoiding the traps of essentialism. I begin with a brief overview of the early understandings of the term “identity politics” in the United States. Moving beyond interest-based movements I explore María Lugones' particular understanding of the self as multiplicitous. I then offer examples of the Muslim identity within the context of a social movement and individualist claims, in order to draw out the political aspects of the Muslim identity. In the final section I argue that the theological criteria that define “who counts as a Muslim” is a crucial aspect of how many Muslims may understand their identity as Muslims. However, I claim that in order to avoid the traps of marginalization of Muslim minorities, one must understand oneself as a multiplicitous political agent and that, furthermore, such an understanding is not at odds with Islam or one's own understanding of their identity as Muslim. (shrink)

Provides specific research-based considerations for LGBTQ teacher preparation and practice that is concerned with teacher identity in an otherwise heteronormative society.

_Purpose._ This article aims at outlining the consider Ukrainian identity in the context of European collective action through the prism of value orientations/approaches. _Theoretical basis._ The following methods were used in order to cover the problem as objectively as possible: historical, analytical, comparative, socio-geographical, behavioral, and dialectical. The use of these methods contributed to tracing the peculiarities of identity and collective action in the dynamics of the historical process and social development. _Originality._ The role of identity in (...) collective action formation is considered. It was established that identity determines the socio-species structure and projects social development. After all, identification for a person in the formation process is a basic need that determines a person’s belonging, not identity. During the formation of "I" there is a combination of "I1" + "I2" + "Other" = "WE". This process is complex and long-term, but it is precisely the process that gives you the opportunity to clearly understand your "I" and know yourself. It was found that identity as a social phenomenon, which is related to the formation of the "I", is determined by certain circumstances, which can be conditionally divided into objective and subjective. After analyzing the scientific literature, a generalization was made that identity is not a new phenomenon, but it has certain features at each stage of social development. This became most noticeable in the conditions of globalization, when countries that are actually different perceive the "Other", unite around certain problems, and then this union forms a system of mutual relations. It is thanks to this approach that alliances, multicultural associations, etc. are formed, and an example of this is the heterogeneous European identity. Special attention is drawn to the role of values, which are the landmarks in the process of identity and the formation of collective action. Based on political, social, economic, historical processes and ontological features, it was established that identity is a dynamic process, since values during a person’s life, the existence of the state, etc. are variables. This is confirmed by the value orientation and various socio-political processes aimed at the formation of Homo in countries that have the status of "between". _Conclusions._ The article illustrates and justifies the existence of several forms of identity according to which the types of identity are formed. The fact proves that identity is not a constant process and varies due to multiple factors: social, political, economic, and religious as well as due to formations – regional, local, civilizational, etc. As practice shows, the problem of identity mostly has situational nature and arises due to the need for unification. The socio-historical process manifests the significance of the values in the formation of a collective European heterogeneous identity. These processes are influenced by many factors: geographical, historical, mythological, etc. (shrink)

The essays in this book not only examine the variety of atheist expression and experience in the Western context, they also explore how local, national and international settings may contribute to the shaping of atheist identities. By addressing identity at these different levels, the book explores how individuals construct their own atheist-or non-religious-identity, how they construct community and how identity factors into atheist interaction at the social or institutional levels. The book offers an interdisciplinary comparative approach to (...) the analysis of issues relating to atheism, such as demography, community engagement, gender politics, stigmatism and legal action. It covers such themes as: secularization; the social context of atheism in various Western countries; the shifting of atheist identities based on different cultural and national contexts; the role of atheism in multicultural settings; how the framework of "reasonable accommodation" applies to atheism; interactions and relationships between atheism and religion; and how atheism is represented for political and legal purposes. Featuring contributions by international scholars at the cutting edge of atheism studies, this volume offers unique insights into the relationship between atheism and identity. It will serve as a useful resource for academics, journalists, policy makers and readers interested in secular and religious studies, identity construction and identity politics as well as atheism in general. (shrink)

In A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Karl Marx outlined his idea of a material 'base' and politico-cultural 'superstructure'. According to this formula, a material reality - wealth, income, occupation - determined your politics, leisure habits, tastes, and how you made sense of the world. Today, the importance of material deprivation, in terms of threats to life, health and prosperity, are as acute as ever. Despite the continued importance of inequality and disadvantage, the identities apparently generated by (...) these realities are increasingly detached from material circumstances. In many casesthe identity has become a powerful signifier in its own right, and is now instrumentalised, idealised and imitated. People attempt to police the boundaries and determine the significance of the identity, so that the identity matters more than the lives of the individuals concerned. These powerful identities can be used for various purposes, from the commercial to the aesthetic to the political. This trend has accelerated in recent years, with increasing precarity and increasingly obvious inequality fuelling anger, and the internet acting as a perfect mechanism for identity theft. Identity Theft covers four different kinds of identity most susceptible to these trends - class, race, sex and age - considering how the boundaries of different identities are policed, and how different versions of the same identity can be deployed to different ends. Ultimately, the argument is not just that 'identities are more complex' than they appear, but rather that there are more important commonalities. Many totemic 'culture war' issues are not particularly contested, but have broad appeal, or little concern for most people. In the UK at least, what might be called a 'culture war' is waged largely on the periphery by crank politicians, social media groups and newspaper columnists. If there is one argument to be taken from this book, it is a call for conscientious objection in the culture wars.,. (shrink)

Northern researchers and service providers espousing modernist theories of development in order to understand and aid countries and peoples of the South ignore their own non-universal starting points of knowledge and their own vested interests. Universal ethics are rejected in favor of situated ethics, while a modified empowerment development model for aiding women in the South based on poststructuralism requires building a bridge identity politics to promote participatory democracy and challenge Northern power knowledges.

This article examines willingness to join China's emerging green movement through an analysis of data from the China General Social Survey of 2006. A question asked about environmental NGO membership shows that while only 1 percent of respondents claim to be members of an environmental NGO, more than three-fifths say they would like to join one in future if there is an opportunity, slightly less than one-fifth reject the idea and the remainder are “don't knows.” The article tests explanations of (...) willingness to join based on instrumentality, ideology, social identity and social capital networks. It finds that instrumental considerations dominate, although ideology, identity and networks contribute incrementally. The conclusion considers the usefulness of willingness to join as an indicator of social cohesion within the framework of a wider effort to evaluate social quality. (shrink)

More and more, we present ourselves and encounter others through profiles. A profile shows us not as we are seen directly but how we are perceived by a broader public. As we observe how others observe us, we calibrate our self-presentation accordingly. Profile-based identity is evident everywhere from pop culture to politics, marketing to morality. But all too often critics simply denounce this alleged superficiality in defense of some supposedly pure ideal of authentic or sincere expression. This (...) book argues that the profile marks an epochal shift in our concept of identity and demonstrates why that matters. You and Your Profile blends social theory, philosophy, and cultural critique to unfold an exploration of the way we have come to experience the world. Instead of polemicizing against the profile, Hans-Georg Moeller and Paul J. D’Ambrosio outline how it works, how we readily apply it in our daily lives, and how it shapes our values—personally, economically, and ethically. They develop a practical vocabulary of life in the digital age. Informed by the Daoist tradition, they suggest strategies for handling the pressure of social media by distancing oneself from one’s public face. A deft and wide-ranging consideration of our era’s identity crisis, this book provides vital clues on how to stay sane in a time of proliferating profiles. (shrink)

Researchers studying argumentation often make the simplifying assumption that rational persuasion can be studied independently from the processes through which social identities are established and maintained. However, developments in the study of message design, particularly the groundbreaking work of Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987) on politeness, suggests that in practice the multiple functions of messages are intertwined in message structure and effects. In contrast to the view that identity issues distort rational processes in communication, both the communication of (...) class='Hi'>identity and the use of identity-based appeals in social influence are best seen as prototypical examples of rationality in message design. (shrink)

This essay has been by necessity a gloss of a complex look at the relations of power, control, and personal identity construction in a workplace. Features of the nature of the work process combine with social strategies to construct a reproductive self-referential system. Corporate organizations are central institutions in contemporary life; they make developmental decisions for individuals and for society as a whole. While they are in this sense political to the core, we have not done enough to understand (...) how this politics works or to explore its relation to people in a democratic society. Using a phenomenologically-based communication analysis enables a sensitive analysis of the multiple forms of power and domination as they exist in corporate sites. Although I have given only an outline of one case study here, this example suggests that phenomenologically-based projects can show harmful and unwarranted control, and can be a first step to fostering corporate practices that lead to decisions which are less wasteful of resources and more fully accomplish the goals of democratic society. (shrink)

Economic and political crisis situations are interpreted differently in different societies and cultures. What is perceived as a major threat in one society can be experienced as an everyday occurrence in other societies. This shows that crises are not issues that exist independently of people, but that they are to a large extent the result of social interpretations. An example of how a community interprets events as a surmountable challenge, rather than a crisis, is Argentina’s public discourse on the 2014 (...) default. Instead of a discourse that concentrates on economic, political and social problems, the event provoked a political discourse on national identity. The present paper uses the methods of descriptive discourse analysis to study this solution-driven way of handling crisis events. The investigation focuses on the cultural knowledge and discourse traditions used in Argentina to interpret the country’s situation in the summer of 2014. The study analyzes how these cultural and linguistic resources contribute to coping with the situation of default while strengthening national identity. (shrink)

This book focuses on the regional political ecologies (RPEs) of environmental conflicts in India. It explores broadly, landscape-based analyses of political, economic and social issues, which impact environmental changes, challenges and conflicts at local and micro-local levels. The chapters in this volume examine the intervention of different stakeholders in the management of various regional ecological landscapes in India, including forests, rivers, canals, creeks and wetlands. The volume is an interdisciplinary endeavour, weaving together contextual narratives through a combination of approaches (...) from sociology, anthropology, geography, political studies and environmental history. Using such core approaches, the book studies the place-based dynamisms within the regional environmental conflicts in the selected conservation landscapes. It provides empirical reflections on transboundary issues, rural-urban transitions, middle-class environmentalism, identity conflicts, decentralized natural resource management and the role of political institutions. Regional Political Ecologies and Environmental Conflicts in India will be of great interest to students and scholars of Political Ecology and South Asian Environmental Studies. (shrink)

Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw ends her landmark essay “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color” with a normative claim about coalitions. She suggests that we should reconceptualize identity groups as “in fact coalitions,” or at least as “potential coalitions waiting to be formed.” In this essay, I explore this largely overlooked claim by combining philosophical analysis with archival research I conducted at the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Historical Society Archive in San Francisco (...) about Somos Hermanas, the solidarity project of the Alliance Against Women’s Oppression, based in the San Francisco Women’s Building (1984–90). I extend my analysis into the present by drawing on the oral history and published works of Carmen Vázquez, a key organizer in both Somos Hermanas and the Women’s Building. I argue that conceptualizing identities as in fact coalitions—as complex, internally heterogeneous unities constituted by their internal differences and dissonances and by internal as well as external relations of power—enables us to organize effective political coalitions that cross existing identity categories and to pursue a liberatory politics of interconnection. (shrink)

By the late 1920s in Europe new art directions were regarded as already completed phenomena, a part of “avant-garde tradition.” Such views were expressed by Jean Arp and El Lissitzky’s in their book Kuntismen, and by Amédée Ozenfant’s in Art. Bilan des arts modernes en France. Similar opinions were also voiced by Jan Brzękowski, a Polish poet and critic, who regarded this time as a period of “establishing certain values” rather than new breakthroughs. In this article I discuss Brzękowski’s strategies (...) as a spokesman of modern art, an intermediary between the Parisian artworld and Polish avant-garde, an author connected with constructivism, and also with surrealist circles in Paris. My main focus is his magazine “Sztuka Współczesna – L’Art Contemporain” and his series of articles “Mileages,” in which he summarizes the developments of modern art. Conscious of the “wearing up” of avant-garde ideas and critical about seeking “novelty” for its own sake, Brzękowski tried to establish a progressive position based on the idea of formal discipline and creative construction. While rejecting a mimetic conception of art, he argued for abstract artistic form that would be “anchored to the bottom of life,” thus emphasizing the interplay of abstract and figurative elements and their dialectic. (shrink)

Axel Honneth is best known for his critique of modern society centered on a concept of recognition. Jacques Rancière has advanced an influential theory of modern politics based on disagreement. Underpinning their thought is a concern for the logics of exclusion and domination that structure contemporary societies. In a rare dialogue, these two philosophers explore the affinities and tensions between their perspectives to provoke new ideas for social and political change. -/- Honneth sees modern society as a field (...) in which the logic of recognition provides individuals with increasing possibilities for freedom and is a constant catalyst for transformation. Rancière sees the social as a policing order and the political as a force that must radically assert equality. Honneth claims Rancière's conception of the political lies outside of actual historical societies and involves a problematic desire for egalitarianism. Rancière argues that Honneth's theory of recognition relies on an overly substantial conception of identity and subjectivity. While impassioned, their exchange seeks to advance critical theory's political project by reconciling the rift between German and French post-Marxist traditions and proposing new frameworks for justice. (shrink)

Political Monsters and Democratic Imagination explores the democratic thought of Spinoza and its relation to the thought of William Blake, Victor Hugo, and James Joyce. As a group, these visionaries articulate: a concept of power founded not on strength or might but on social cooperation; a principle of equality based not on the identity of individuals with one another but on the difference between any individual and the intellectual power of society as a whole; an understanding of thought (...) as a process that operates between rather than within individuals; and a theory of infinite truth, something individuals only partially glimpse from their particular cultural situations. For Blake, God is the constellation of individual human beings, whose collective imagination produces revolutionary change. In Hugo's novel, Jean Valjean learns that the greatest truth about humanity lies in the sewer or among the lowest forms of social existence. For Joyce, Leopold and Molly Bloom are everybody and nobody, singular beings whose creative power and truth is beyond categories and social hierarchies. (shrink)

In the course of the last thirty years, feminist theories of gender have shifted from quasi-Marxist, labor-centered conceptions to putatively “post-Marxist”culture- and identity-based conceptions. Reflecting a broader political move from redistribution to recognition, this shift has been double-edged. On the one hand, it has broadened feminist politics to encompass legitimate issues of representation, identity, and difference. Yet, in the context of an ascendant neoliberalism, feminist struggles for recognition may be serving to less to enrich struggles for (...) redistribution than to displace the latter. I aim to resist that trend. In this essay, I propose an analysis of gender that is broad enough to house the full range of feminist concerns, those central to the old socialist-feminism as well as those rooted in the cultural turn. I also propose a correspondingly broad conception of justice, capable of encompassing both distribution and recognition, and a non-identitarian account of recognition, capable of synergizing with redistribution. I conclude by examining some practical problems that arise when we try to envision institutional reforms that could redress gender maldistribution and gender misrecognition simultaneously. (shrink)

Basing its understanding on the two uses of the notion of violence in Honneth’s theory of recognition, this paper aims at developing a framework for the analysis of the thesis of the moral justification of political violence, whenever forms of political violence can be defined as legitimate struggles of recognition. Its contention is that the requalification of some forms of collective violence as recognition conflicts makes it possible to establish a hierarchy of justification for forms of violence which cannot be (...) constructed through a priori criteria, but should rather be the result of a descriptive social philosophy enquiry. (shrink)

Democracy has been a flawed hegemony since the fall of communism. Its flexibility, its commitment to equality of representation, and its recognition of the legitimacy of opposition politics are all positive features for political institutions. But democracy has many deficiencies: it is all too easily held hostage by powerful interests; it often fails to advance social justice; and it does not cope well with a number of features of the political landscape, such as political identities, boundary disputes, and environmental (...) crises. Although democracy is valuable it fits uneasily with other political values and is in many respects less than equal to the demands it confronts. In this volume prominent political theorists and social scientists present original discussions of such central issues. Democracy's Values deals with the nature and value of democracy, particularly the tensions between it and such goods as justice, equality, efficiency, and freedom. (shrink)

Education as identity formation in Western-style liberal-democracies relies, in part, on neutrality as a justification for the reproduction of collective individual identity, including societal, cultural, institutional and political identities, many aspects of which are problematic in terms of the reproduction of environmentally harmful attitudes, beliefs and actions. Taking a position on an issue necessitates letting go of certain forms of neutrality, as does effectively teaching environmental education. We contend that to claim a stance of neutrality is to claim (...) a position beyond criticism. In the classroom this can also be an epistemically damaging position to hold. To further explore the problem of neutrality in the classroom, and to offer a potential solution, we will look to the philosophical community of inquiry pedagogy, and advocate for the addition of place-based education; a form of experiential education that promotes learning in local communities in which the school is situated, each with its own history, culture, economy and environment. However, how we understand ‘place’ is fundamental to understanding the potential of place-based education in giving students a ‘sense of place’—how they perceive a place, which includes place attachment and place meaning. To this end, we look to Indigenous understandings of Place and social reconstruction learning to inform place-based pedagogies. Doing so, we hold, opens a pathway to ethical education. (shrink)

This volume gathers contributions at the intersection of history and politics. The essays, covering such topics as diverse as Italian identity in the Tientsin concession, international refugee policies in the interwar period and after, and the myths and realities of the Ukranian-Russian encounter in independent Ukraine, show that history provides better grounding as well as a more suitable paradigm for the study of politics than economics or other hard sciences. All of the contributors have a common link (...) - doctoral work supervised and shaped by Professor Andre Liebich - but have since expanded widely in the world. Hence, the authors of this work at once share a common base and yet benefit from diverse viewpoints. (shrink)

This article examines three terms associated with the take-up of Foucault’s analysis of the biopolitical, namely identity, nature and life. It argues that Foucault opposes their reduction respectively to sameness, to origin, or to some primordial force. These reductions not only fall into species of metaphysics, they fail to recognize the integration of difference and of constitutive relationality in Foucault’s conceptualization of the process of subjectivation and becoming as historically dynamic and mobile. The article emphasizes the importance of historicization (...) and of a constructive genealogy in Foucault’s approach, running counter to metaphysics, and opening new avenues for political action based on the recognition of the interiority of resistance to dispositifs of power and of the creative force in individuation. (shrink)

In both politics and art in recent decades, there has been a dramatic shift in emphasis on representation of identity. Liberal ideals of universality and individuality have given way to a concern with the visibility and recognition of underrepresented groups. Modernist and postmodernist celebrations of disruption and subversion have been challenged by the view that representation is integral to social change. Despite this convergence, neither political nor aesthetic theory has given much attention to the increasingly central role of (...) art in debates and struggles over cultural identity in the public sphere. -/- Connecting Hegelian aesthetics with contemporary cultural politics, Jason Miller argues that both the aesthetic and political value of art are found in the reflexive self-awareness that artistic representation enables. The significance of art in modern life is that it shows us both the particular element in humanity as well as the human element in particularity. Just as Hegel asks us to acknowledge how different historical and cultural contexts produce radically different experiences of art, identity-based art calls on its audiences to situate themselves in relation to perspectives and experiences potentially quite remote—or even inaccessible—from their own. Miller offers a timely response to questions such as: How does contemporary art’s politics of perception contest liberal notions of deliberative politics? How does the cultural identity of the artist relate to the representations of cultural identity in their work? How do we understand and evaluate identity-based art aesthetically? -/- Discussing a wide range of works of art and popular culture—from Antigone to Do the Right Thing and The Wire—this book develops a new conceptual framework for understanding the representation of cultural identity that affirms art’s capacity to effect social change. (shrink)