What is identity or rather how can we describe identity. It is most described as an active engagement by every one of us, identifying with a group of people through similarities and differences. It is the product and a link of and to the society we live in and our relationship with others, in other words, a link between the personal and the social.
Identities can bee seen as fixed or fluid, individual and collective and combine how I see myself and other see me.
Through interaction with other people we form our identities along personal and social processes, mainly by the structure of the society we live in.
If we look at the passport example we realize, that institutions like the state can restrict us to adopt some identities like for example gender. There are laws and procedures in place which make it impossible to change our gender after the birth certificate is issued. Gender is a key dimension of identity. By gender reassignment, changing clothes and behaviour we can exercise a certain control over it but the law constrains us from the use of the new gender.
Freud argues that our childhood experiences, the conscious and the unconscious ones, influence us on the decision-making as adults. That indicates that the identities we form maybe, to a certain extent, the result of these childhood experiences and limit our control of shaping our own identities.
Through therapy we might be able to understand ourselves better and exercise more agency but only to a certain extent.
Childhood experiences are also influenced by wealth power and class, so are adults and there identities. Wealth brings security, control and possibilities.
If we follow Freud’s argument, a childhood in poverty might have a different impact on later decision-making then a childhood where the needs were met financial wise.
As the gap between rich and poor gets bigger, and by knowing that wealth brings security and control, a logical conclusion could be that the amount of control for an increasing number of people gets less.
The growing division between working poor and working rich households is just one visible indication of the widening gap, relatively affluent minority and a large below average living majority. As income and work are important sources of identity, the shift in wealth and employment opportunities indicate a further decrease in control over shaping our own identities.
In a multicultural society as the UK, there is enormous potential for structural change as we see in the example of the black consciousness movements in the 1960’s.
By the improvement of the social position of a less powerful group, the dominating group is forced to rethink and redefine its own position in the society, creating uncertainty and diversity by the change in the structure. In this case, black people gained freedom and control in shaping their own identities as individuals and as a group by braking out of a fixed category.
The preceding example and the increasing shift from collective to individual identities and from occupation to consumption patterns indicate more choice and control for the individual in shaping identities.
All the above mentioned arguments are examples of how and to what extend control can be exercised in shaping our own identities. We can redefine and reconstruct our identities both as individuals and as a group. As a group we can even influence the social structure as we saw by the example of the black consciousness movements in the 1960’s.
For me, the key point is the increasing shift from collective to individual identities and from occupation to consumption patterns which influence the interrelationship between structure and agency.
As we identify ourselves more and more over consumption, the erosion of class identity and therefore an increasing individualization gives us more control in shaping our own identities but the increasing status of materialism in our society makes us also increasingly dependent on steady and high income to shape, negotiate and interpret our roles/identities we adopt.
The increasingly unstable labour markets, the negative effects on them by the globalization and the changing economy makes it difficult, to earn a stable and high salary for the individual.
Bourdieu refers to cultural capital as an important part of status in society and therefore control over certain identities (Bourdieu, 1984). But as education, sports and leisure activities increasingly depend on money as well because of government cutbacks in many of these areas, the availability of cultural capital is increasingly accessible by less and less people.
Even though, structural changes seem to give individuals more control over shaping their own identities, the economical factors are limiting and restricting it to such an extend, that my conclusion is an increasingly diminishing amount of control for the majority of people, in shaping their own identities.
(794 words)
ReferencesBourdieu, P. (1984) Distinction: a Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul
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