Sociology of identity

2004

2009

On the opening page of this inquiry into identity Bernd Simon reminds us that "Identity is fashionable. Everybody wants to have one, many promise to provide one". Identity is not only highly topical in popular culture but is the subject of considerable academic musing and social scientific endeavour.

2015

When studying the complex issue of identity, it is necessary to decompose it into individual parts or contexts that reveal partial identities. Since they are connected to each other, a particular change in a certain identity may induce further changes in others, or even all of them. Together they create a configuration of complex Identity that is unique, original and variable in time and space. Identity is a system that can be managed. Human being can be converted into an instrument of satisfying needs, a consumer of products. People are open to what is considered and labelled as legitimate in the social world. The social world is primary; it is a cultural text, in which the processes of defining and selfdefining are ongoing. It is therefore essential to view a person or society as a holder of multiple identities.

Datenschutz und Datensicherheit - DuD, 2006

With the introduction of digital media, publicly available networks and the development of the Information Society, identity has become a pressing contemporary issue with wide ranging implications. This article outlines diverse areas of identity-related research and reviews the relevant literature on offer. Analysis of the research to date leads to the conclusion that cross-disciplinary approach is called for if we are to achieve a comprehensive understanding of Identity in the Information Society.

Without social identity there is no human world. Without frameworks of similarity and difference, people would be unable to relate to each other in a consistent and meaningful fashion. In the second edition of this highly successful text Richard Jenkins develops his argument that identity is both individual and collective, and should therefore be considered within a unified analytic framework. Using the work of major social theorists, such as Mead, Goffman and Barth, to explore the experience of identity in everyday life, Jenkins considers a range of different issues, including:

The Sociological Review, 2010

This edited collection draws on twelve British research projects from the recent 'Identities and Social Action' programme, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. As such, it provides a series of snapshots of a 'particular sample, site or context for identity making' (p. 2). Broadly concerned with Judith Butler's (2004) question of how people build 'liveable' lives, the collection addresses grand theories of social change-particularly those pressing the 'individualization' thesis (eg Bauman, 2001; Beck, 1992; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2002; Giddens, 1991)-through empirical studies of class and community, ethnicity and migration, and intimate identities. Ranging from large scale survey data to qualitative multimethods, a psychosocial case study and discourse analysis, it examines contemporary lives from a range of methodological perspectives. As such, it offers rich new interpretations of current intersections between identity, culture and power, and a stimulating challenge to dominant theories of late modern identity. In Part I, four chapters focus on Class and Community. In their study of white middle-class 'against the grain' school choices (pp. 76-94), David James et al. criticize the view of the individual 'self-as-consumer' (Rose, 1998) that dominates both social theory and policy. The researchers acknowledge the resonance with Giddens's (1991) reflexive individual in a neo-liberal, globalized economy in the field of school 'choice'; but by showing how middle class parents choosing 'bad' schools actually develop and confirm their 'abundance of capital' (p. 89), they argue that the individual is not the primary site for understanding identity. From a different perspective, Anthony Heath, John Curtice and Gabriella Elgenius interrogate subjective aspects of class to address claims by Beck (1992), Beck and Beck-Gernsheim (2002) and Bauman (2001) regarding the decline of collective class identities (pp. 21-40). Their meticulous analysis of survey data 1964-2005 qualifies the 'compulsion on individuals to choose their own biographies' (p. 38) with an historicallyinformed emphasis on the importance of political debate and development, namely the conscious move away from class politics by New Labour in the mid 1990s. In the second part, five chapters address the theme of Ethnicities and Encounters with studies of, for example, women negotiating post-colonial London, white British residents of provincial cities, and schoolgirls discussing a text message. Concerned with dominant themes in ethnicity theory, such as Gilroy's (2004) 'conviviality' and Hall's (1992) 'new ethnicities', the studies emphasize the necessity for close-up empirical scrutiny of spatialised, messy, shifting intersections of histories, race, ethnicity, faith, sexuality and gender within localized social networks. In Rod Earle and Coretta Phillips's ethnography of a Young Offenders' Institution (pp. 120-38), for example, the Book reviews

Sociology, 2016

Why Identity and Why Identity in the 1990s? To celebrate the 50 th anniversary of the journal Sociology, the Editorial Board have decided to publish four e-special issues to showcase the depth of material in its archive. After some discussion the Board agreed that these should be grouped by both time period and theme: the other e-special issues are '1967-1979 Sociology and Social Class' edited by Ryan and Maxwell, 'Sociology in the 1980s-The Rise of Gender' edited by Roth and Dashper, and 'Sociology in the 21 st Century-Reminiscence and Redefinition' edited by Jawad, Dolan and Silkington.Identity was chosen as the focus for the present e-special issue as the 1990s was an important period in the development of public and sociological discussions around this slippery concept. This was an era when the politics of group identities came to the fore (around sexuality and ethnicity to name but two). It was also, as we discuss below, the decade when the notion of the 'individualization' of self-identities was widely discussed in sociology and beyond. Sociologists' interest in the topic of identity has waxed and waned over the years. Much of the work of classic social theory, including Durkheim, Marx, and Simmel, was concerned with the impact of the shift from traditional to modern society on people's sense of self and on the relationship between individual and society. Decades after, the fathers of symbolic interactionism, Mead and Cooley, explored the inherently social processes by which personal identities are formed. Later Goffman's extensive work considered how unwritten rules of interaction inform social identities and their presentation. In spite of this rich tradition, identity did not figure as a topic when David Morgan and Liz Stanley, the editors of Sociology, organized a collection around key debates within British sociology to celebrate the journal's 25 th anniversary in 1992. The chapters, written by current or recent members of the Sociology editorial board, discussed social mobility; women and class; organisational structures; 'industrialism'; inequalities within the household; power; ethnomethodology; and gender (Morgan and Stanley, 1993). The term 'identity' was missing from the contents and index of this collection. Yet within a few years it was ubiquitous across the sociology curriculum and has remained so. This embrace of the term 'identity' did not come without

International Journal of Management Reviews, 2015

As the lead, introductory, contribution to this special issue 'exploring registers of identity research', this paper offers a view of three different "registers" that might be seen to characterize identity research and which feature, to a greater or lesser extent, in the selected papers. First, the paper offers a means to understand the different theoretical traditions used to explain what constitutes identity and how it might be known. Second, it considers the relationship between different levels of identityindividual, group, professional, organizational, and societal. Third, it reviews the methodologies used to understand identities and examines key theoretical assumptions which feature in academic debates, and in the selected papers, around identity theorizing. Drawing on the papers included in this special issue we offer a framework as a heuristic device that might guide scholars looking to enter the field of identity research and enable those already familiar with particular theoretical traditions, levels, or methods to explore possibilities for extending their research. As enticement to tackle the challenges extension across-registers can present, we again turn to the special issue articles to examine-through a series of 'gets'the different tactics authors might use to access the rich potential offered by crossfertilization between registers. Our contribution then lies in advancing the potential for dialogue between registers of identity research.

2019

2016

This book is therefore addressed to those researchers familiar with identity issues and interested in enlarging their view of Identity Studies. We hope they can find inspiration and new resources from these readings. It is also suitable for those researchers that are interested on working with this subject in the future. For them, we believe the present selection of papers may provide a wider horizon for their work and a rich sample of possibilities.