A Critical Discursive Approach to Identity 177The critical discursive approach to identity presented here is an
outgrowth of three interconnected theoretical and methodological
approaches. Social constructionism is a metatheoretical orientation that
attempts to free conceptualizations of identity from foundationalist
assumptions regarding the ontological prioritization of individuality over
relationality, as well as the (falsely) dualistic the relationship between
language/communication and minds/thoughts. Ethnomethodology makes
the theoretical intimations of social constructionism analytically visible
and tractable. It puts meat on the bones of a theoretical commitment to
identities as emergent relational phenomenon that are analytically tractable
in the details of actual discursive moments. Ethnomethodological work has
generated a rich vocabulary for describing how people orient to, ascribe,
make relevant, and resist identities in social contexts. And a discursive
positioning approach reveals how discursive actions are ingredients in the
constitution of identities as interactional phenomena that are organized as
part of the social maintenance of relationships and daily life. A discursive
positioning approach is thus posited as the vanguard for a critical
interactional approach to identity.
This view of identity ushers in exciting possibilities for liberatory
forms of critical psychology. For example, a critical discursive orientation
to identity has been useful for addressing issues related to sexism (see
Gough, 1998; Korobov, 2004), homophobia (see Gough, 2002; Korobov,
2014), heterosexism (see Kitzinger & Wilkinson, 2013; Speer & Potter,
2000), racism (see Durrheim & Dixon, 2004; Fozdar, 2008), non-relational
sexuality (Korobov, 2006), as well as issues concerning exploitation, social
structure and power relations (Wetherell & Potter, 1993), or the
internalization of oppression by young women (Bearman, Korobov, &
Thorne, 2009). Such an approach lays open, in a concrete and grounded
way, the fine details of how inequalities take root at the interactional level,
and how at the same level, there exist possibilities for intervention and
resistance.
In sum, a critical approach to identity that is grounded in discursive
psychology will sharpen the ways psychologists typically talk, in broad
strokes, about identity as a contextual phenomenon. The aim of a critical