1 :: GENERAL INTRODUCTION
For those working in the social sciences and humanities – from social and political
theorists to philosophers – identity is a topic that remains of fundamental significance
and of enduring relevance to the world in which we live. The great foundational figures
of philosophy and social thought – from Aristotle to Kant to Hegel – all underscored the
essential importance of identity to the attainment of human reflectiveness, personal
autonomy and political freedom. Similarly, the great figures of classical social theory
such as Marx, Weber, Durkheim and Freud all developed conceptual accounts of world
affairs that underscored the centrality of identity – at once individual and collective – to
social relations and cultural praxis. According to classical social theory, the conditions,
contours and consequences of identity were to undergo radical transformation as a
result of social forces like capitalism, rationalization, the growing complexity of cultural
organization, and the redrafting of the human passions and repressed desire. Identity
demanded analysis, so it was claimed, because it was at the core of how people
experienced – reacted to, and coped with – the early modern industrial transformations
sweeping the globe. This emphasis on identity was not just a preoccupation of classical
social theory and philosophy, however. Concepts of identity remained prominent in the
social sciences throughout the twentieth century. Against the social-historical
backcloth of two world wars, including the rise of fascism and socialism, as well as the
spread of Western consumer affluence in the post-war years, the notion of identity
received sustained analytical attention in the social sciences and humanities. Indeed,
there was something of a flourishing of identity in fields as wide-ranging as sociology,
political science, history, philosophy, economics and many others – as social scientists
sought to come to grips with the major transitions of the era at the level of lived
experience and everyday social life. To be sure, identity was recast and reframed time
and again in order to better fit with the ebbs and flows of modern industrial society and,
later in the century, the advent of post-industrial societies. During this period, identity
was catapulted to become a dominant intellectual term for grasping processes of
social change and historical transformation. This was evident in a range of analyses
which sought to underscore the complex ways in which identity had been transfigured
as a result of social upheavals and cultural transformations. Identity, at different times
and in different fields, had become secularized, rationalized, administered, decentred,
dispersed, isolated, fragmented, fractured or split. Quite remarkably, there were other
accounts of identity on offer from the academy which rendered identity communicative,
creative, innovative, progressive or future-orientated. This conceptual and political
ambivalence informing the field of identity studies is traceable from the early twentieth
century to the present day.In the last few decades especially, identity has become a topic that is increasingly
discussed and debated among social theorists. Indeed, subjectivity, selfhood andThe following is excerpted from
Identity, 4-vol set by Anthony
Elliott.
©2015 Taylor & Francis Group.
All rights reserved.
Purchase a copy HERE.
Anthony Elliott
is Director of the Hawke
Research Institute and Executive
Director of the Hawke EU Centre
for Mobilities, Migrations and
Cultural Transformations, where
he is Research Professor of
Sociology at the University of
South Australia. He is the author
and editor of some 40 books,
and his research has been
translated into 17 languages.