V6/7: Identity and Subjectivity

Question 1

What is Identity (Giles and Middleton)?

Answer 1

Identity markers classify

• identity and difference are about inclusion and exclusion

Question 2

What is an anti-humanist apporach to identity?

Answer 2

Decentered Subjectivity:

• our self is formed by outside influences
• the manners in which we conceive of our selfhood, the forms according to which we understand our selves, are themselves determined in multiple ways by discursive formations

-> self as fragmented and not unified

Question 3

What is Essentialism and Non-essentialism?

Answer 3

Essentialism:

• identity is fixed by biological markers (true identity)
• E.g. Asians have certain characteristics that Europeans can’t have
• originating momment

Non-essentialism:

• Identity can be changed
• The ways be think and act are shaped by the social environment

Question 4

What is Subject Interpellation? (Luis Althusser)

Answer 4

• identity as the interface between a private sense of self (beliefs, feelings, motivation) and the social context (age, ethinicity, sex

Subject interpellation:

• Ideologies are formed through higher ups (society, schools, churhces) -> e.g. gender roles
• These are reinforced
• Hailing: Ideology is realised -> e.g. Boys don’t cry
• Subject recognizes and internalizes these norms -> I’m a boy, I won’t cry -

-> outcome: “thats right” -> fully conforms

Question 5

What is Liberalism?

Answer 5

Connected to humanism:

• Subjects are autonomous -> have free will
• Can both act in the world, and be affected by outside forces
• Enlightenment