During begins by examining how cultural studies and identity politics has conceived of and defined Identity. During argues that Identity is not fixed or stable or outside the process of society.
Some perceive Identity as a trait, which is arbitrarily ascribed in a social process. This process often sacrifices Individuality in favour of a trait which defines someone as belonging to a group.
Furthermore Identities are not singular and static, individuals have identities. During groups these identities as ‘Given’ or ‘Inherited’ Identities and Chosen identities. Given identities are often based on corporeal factors, such as race, gender and age. Chosen identities are those based on cultural or ideological choices or preferences. Identities are not neutral and are performed in a social space. Identity therefore is a process, a continual, fluid and evolving one. The point is each of these identities are partial, they don’t describe the whole person and there is always a part of someone that is not covered by identity. This part of the person is excluded from society. This is the personal and intimate aspect of yourself. I would argue this exclusion will only continue if you maintain silence around that part of yourself, that as soon as you articulate this part of yourself, you formulate a corresponding identity. Identity is formed through communication, and this is where this is vital for media studies. To consider how we articulate and identify ourselves in the media and how the media identifies us. One can argue that Media meditates our identities. The primary identity which the media ascribe us as a mass is the identity of a consumer. After all, they have to sell things to continue producing media. Newspapers for example traditionally ascribed national and local identities to its readership. Broadcast media aside, how to other forms of media such as telecommunications play out with our Identities. I am different on the phone than in person?
One point of During’s I found interesting is that these social identities are limiting and enabling. Limiting in that being identified as part of a group you are automatically ascribed all of their traits, even if they don’t all apply to you, but that identities are the frameworks for our lives, they are what connects us to society. He argues ‘it is impossible to exist in Society without a proper name, without being located within a set of identity granting institutions…. this is not inescapable social structure’ P 152. Indeed the above definitions describe identity and the process of identity in a liberating way. You can see why this appeals to many, in that is allows a certain amount of choice in how we perform our identities, and even if many of them are given identities, its liberating in the sense that these needn’t be the dominant or primary identities we employ. I see this fluidity of identity in my own life all the time. Right now one of my primary identities is a Uni Student. It is ascribed to me each time I am on campus, each time I write, whenever anyone asks me about my studies and so on. This is a new identity. Last year, when travelling, I found our national identities often become a dominant identity. Somehow when we leave the country, being identified as Australian becomes really important. Recently starting a relationship, I was ascribed and chose the identity of Girlfriend. All these identities have baggage because they act like signifiers and people read different meanings into them.
During locates the rise of Identity politics in the 60s and 70’s. Identity Politics surrounds those marginalised groups who were excluded by their difference from the Universal White Heterosexual Bourgeoise Male. The Civil rights movement, women’s movement, gay rights all involved the use of Identity politics. They were similar in that all these movements were trying to find a social space and voice and political agency in which to ‘assert and struggle for wants and needs that they have by virtue of their marginalised identity’ (p .148). For During identity was formed though struggle.
During goes on however to outline some of the problems encountered with identity politics namely that; they tend to erase differences in and of a group; they essentialise identity; they tend to exclude those who don’t fit the current definition of the group identity; they tend to overlook the real and actual conditions of how we experience our identities in the real world, identity politics are accused of being highly theorised; Identity politics can lapse into rigidity of definition and this can undermine the cause and finally Identity politics tend to ‘invent’ legitimising histories. During argues that Hybridity theory was the academic response to these charges. During states ’Hybridity theory thinks of identity not as a marker, stable trait shared across groups, but as a practice whose meaning and effect is constantly mutating as its context changes’ (p.151). For During though this concept does not move past identity politics sufficiently. He criticises of Hybridity theory of being too theoretical and utopian and lacking a practical point in which we can relate identity to our real experiences. During proposes that infact struggle can be this entry point. He demonstrates how identities whether collective or individual forge during struggle and then often fade after the battle has been won. Here we see the fluidity and dynamics of identity as described above, but in relation to a real life scenario of struggle which is a central feature of so many who have employed identity politics.
I appreciate what During is trying to do by bringing identity politics back to earth and out of highly conceptualised theory. I agree the criticisms, but for me, sometimes these highly conceptualised theories are really playful and liberating. I like the idea I can play with aspects of my identity and that it is fluid and dynamic. But this is probably During’s point, I come from a relatively privileged background where i have had little experience of being marginalised as a result of one of my identities. To me it may be folly, but to many its real gritty and no joke.
During, Simon. ‘Debating Identity’ in Cultural Studies: A Critical Introduction, Routledge: London: 2005, 145-152
Tags: annarigg, arts1090, cultural studies, F13B, fluidity, identity, media identities, politics
