1 :: GENERAL INTRODUCTION
identity have become the focus of intense social-theoretical, philosophical and feminist
fascination, and it is against this backcloth that social theorists have especially sought
to rethink the constitution and reproduction of the affective contours of identity –
especially sexualities, bodies, pleasures, desires, impulses and sensations. How to
think identity beyond the constraints of inherited social-theoretical categories is a
question that is increasingly crucial to the possibilities of political radicalism today. The
cultural prompting for this turn towards identity in social theory is not too difficult to
discern. In the aftermath of the sexual revolution of the 1960s, and particularly because
of the rise of feminism, identity has come to be treated as infusing broad-ranging
changes taking place in personal and social life. In retrieving what global capitalism
and mainstream culture have pushed to the margins, social theory and cultural studies
have emphasized the creativity of action essential to identity constitution and identity
transformations. Identities, it has been emphasized, are located within the terms of a
particular culture and way of life, and as such subjective categories of experience
reflect vital details for scrutinizing social relations and political domination at the
deepest level. This is not to say that identity is merely a reflex of the social, cultural or
political domains. For it is equally the case that identity escapes the confines of social
stability, cultural traditions or political imperialism. Or, more accurately, rather than
identities merely reproducing the social and political, it multiplies and extends them.
Identity may go hand in hand with culture and society, but there is always a remainder,
a left-over, something more. It is identity then in the sense of particular subjectivity at
work within social relations and cultural life that has gripped much recent social
theory. This has been evident in debates in the social sciences and humanities over the
politics of identity, sexual diversity, postmodern feminism or post-feminism, gay and
lesbian identities, the crisis of personal relationships and family life, AIDS, as well as
sexual ethics and the responsibilities of care, respect and love. Understanding how
identities are both inside and outside of the complex history of societies has moved
increasingly centre-stage in much recent progressive social thought.
In this introduction, I shall explore the central discourses of identity that have shaped,
and been reshaped, by contemporary social theory and the social sciences. These
approaches can be grouped under four broad headings – psychoanalytic; structuralism,
post-structuralist and postmodern; feminism; and theories of identity, individualism
and individualization more generally. I make no claim in this analysis to discuss all the
significant themes raised by these discourses or theories. Rather I seek to portray the
contributions of particular theorists in general terms, in order to suggest some central
questions that the analysis of identity raises for social theory today.