Identity Game

2 SIMILARITY AND DIFFERENCE There are many questions to ask about identity and identification. How do we know who we are, and how do others identify us? How does our sense of ourselves as unique individuals square with the realisation that, always and everywhere, we share aspects of our identity with many others? How can we reconcile our routine sense of ourselves as consistently ¡®who we are¡¯ with the knowledge that we can be different things to different people and in different circumstances? To what extent is it possible to become someone, or something, other than what we now are? And is it possible to ¡®just be myself¡¯? This book offers a sociological framework1 within which to think about these questions. Identification is a particularly seductive sociological topic because of the way in which it focuses the sociological imagination on the mundane dramas, dreams and perplexities of everyday human life. It brings together C. Wright Mills¡¯ ¡®public issues¡¯ and ¡®private troubles¡¯ and makes sense of each in terms of the other. To put this in another context, ¡®identity¡¯, as a meta-concept that, unusually, makes as much sense individually as collectively, is strategically significant for social theoretical debates about ¡®structuration¡¯ and the relationship between the individual and the collective (Parker 2000; Stones 2005) DEFINING IDENTITY In principle, the notion of identity applies to the entire universe of creatures, things and substances, as well as to humans. Its general, non sociological, meanings are worth considering. The Oxford English Dictionary offers a Latin root . identitas, from idem, ¡®the same¡¯ . and two basic meanings: � . the sameness of objects, as in A1 is identical to A2 but not to B1; . the consistency or continuity over time that is the basis for establishing and grasping the definiteness and distinctiveness of something. From either angle, the notion of identity involves two criteria of comparison between persons or things: similarity and difference. Exploring further, the verb ¡®to identify¡¯ is a necessary accompaniment of identity. There is something active about identity that cannot be ignored: it isn¡¯t ¡®just there¡¯, it¡¯s not a ¡®thing¡¯, it must always be established. This adds two further items to our starter pack: . to classify things or persons; . to associate oneself with, or attach oneself to, something or someone else (such as a friend, a sports team or an ideology). Each of these locates identity in practice: they are both things that people do. The latter also implies a degree of reflexivity. Which brings us back to social identity. While this third edition retains the book¡¯s original title . marketing considerations carry some weight, after all . I prefer, wherever possible, simply to talk about ¡®identity¡¯ or ¡®identification¡¯. This is for two reasons. First, if my argument is correct, all human identities are, by definition, social identities. Identifying ourselves, or others, is a matter of meaning, and meaning always involves interaction: agreement and disagreement, convention and innovation, communication and negotiation. To add the ¡®social¡¯ in this context is somewhat redundant (cf. Ashton et al. 2004: 81). Second, I have argued elsewhere that to distinguish analytically between the ¡®social¡¯ and the ¡®cultural¡¯ misrepresents the observable realities of the human world (Jenkins 2002a: 39.62). Sticking with plain ¡®identity¡¯ prevents me from being seen to do so. Much writing about identity treats it as something that simply is. Careless reification of this kind pays insufficient attention to how identification works or is done, to process and reflexivity, to the social construction of identity in interaction and institutionally. Identity can only be understood as a process of ¡®being¡¯ or ¡®becoming¡¯. One¡¯s identity . one¡¯s identities, indeed, for who we are is always multi-dimensional, singular and plural . is never a final or settled matter. Not even death freezes the picture: identity or reputation may be reassessed after death; some identities . sainthood or martyrdom, for example . can only be achieved beyond the grave; and graves and memorials . testaments of identity, in some respects . are not unchanging points in a static landscape (Hallam and Hockey similarity and difference 17 � 2001; Sudnow 1967). Bearing this in mind, for sociological purposes identification can be defined minimally thus: . ¡®Identity¡¯ denotes the ways in which individuals and collectivities are distinguished in their relations with other individuals and collectivities. . ¡®Identification¡¯ is the systematic establishment and signification, between individuals, between collectivities, and between individuals and collectivities, of relationships of similarity and difference. . Taken . as they can only be . together, similarity and difference are the dynamic principles of identification, and are at the heart of the human world. Like most of the ideas in this book, the notion that similarity and difference play off each other is not new. In 1844 Karl Marx wrote the following, in a letter to Feuerbach: The unity of man with man, which is based on real differences between men . . . what is this but the concept of society! (Marx, quoted in Wheen 1999: 55) More than seventy years later, in a similar vein, Simmel argued that the practical significance of men for one another . . . is determined by both similarities and differences among them. Similarity as fact or tendency is no less important than difference. In the most varied forms, both are the great principles of all internal and external development. In fact the cultural history of mankind can be conceived as the history of the struggles and conciliatory attempts between the two. (Simmel 1950: 30) Thus, identification is a game of ¡®playing the vis-¨¤-vis¡¯ (Boon 1982: 26). Identity is our understanding of who we are and who other people are, and, reciprocally, other people¡¯s understanding of themselves and of others (which includes us). It is a very practical matter, synthesising relationships of similarity and difference. The outcome of agreement and disagreement, and at least in principle always negotiable, identification is not fixed. DISCOURSES OF DIFFERENCE The approach to identity and identification that I explore in this book is at odds with an influential body of contemporary social theory that distinguishes between ¡®identity¡¯ and ¡®difference¡¯, as different kinds of 18 similarity and difference � phenomena, and emphasises the pre-eminence of difference. Identity is, at best, confined to a supporting role, in relationships based either on similarity alone or on identification with someone or something. This ¡®difference paradigm¡¯ has roots in a varied range of debates over the last three decades. One such debate was about theoretical alternatives to structuralism: inspiration was sought in Derrida¡¯s notion of diff¨¦rance and psychoanalytic models which understood identification as dissociation from ego¡¯s earliest significant other(s). Elsewhere, a celebratory emphasis on difference was part of postmodernism¡¯s abandonment of modernist grand narratives and universalism. The reconstruction of theory and strategy on the political broad left, following the collapse of European state socialism and the rightward reorientation of politics in the Western social democracies, was also significant. New political alliances were expressed in ideas such as ¡®identity politics¡¯, for which ¡®difference¡¯ provided an organising theme. In this context, the campaigns of a range of interest groups and movements . women, ethnic minorities, gays and lesbians, disabled people, for example . have asserted the positivity of diversity and difference, and the ethical and political value of pluralism. Notable theorists of difference include Seyla Benhabib (1996), Judith Butler (1990), Paul Gilroy (2006), Stuart Hall (1996), Luce Irigaray (1993), Steven Seidman (1997) and Charles Taylor (1994). If nothing else, this brief roll call suggests that theoretical discourses focusing on difference are, as one might perhaps expect, characterised by intellectual and political heterogeneity (for useful surveys, see du Gay et al. 2000; Taylor and Spencer 2004; Woodward 1997a). Even so, there is some agreement, and, in the context of my argument, it is important to emphasise that key elements of this broad understanding of identification are right. Anti-essentialism is perhaps the most obvious of these. To insist that identity is not fixed, immutable or primordial, that it is utterly sociocultural in its origins, and that it is somewhat negotiable and flexible, is the right place to begin if we are to understand how identification works. However, this perspective is not new . it is certainly not post-modern . nor is it as radical as it is often presented. It has been particularly influential in social anthropology, post-Barth (1969), but it has an even longer history in interactionist sociology, stretching back through Goffman, to Hughes, Simmel and Weber. At best, this wheel has been reinvented. A healthy distrust of political universalism . of inclusive, apparently equal, citizenship . also imbues the work of many of these authors. Gutmann, introducing Taylor¡¯s seminal essay ¡®The Politics of Recognition¡¯, describes universalism as ¡®totalitarian¡¯ (1994: 7), while Irigaray puts it thus: ¡®supposedly universal values . . . turn out to entail one part of humanity similarity and difference 19 � having a hold on the other¡¯ (1993: 16, her emphasis). These are important and defensible views: difficult questions need to be asked about the potential tyranny of compulsory inclusion. The recent convergence in Western Europe of social integration policies with the ¡®war on terror¡¯ is only one case in point. Arguments that diversity is valuable . necessary even . do not conflict with the understanding of identification set out in this book. Having acknowledged common ground, I must now disagree with two core propositions that are broadly shared by difference theorists. The first insists that knowing who¡¯s who is primarily . if not wholly . a matter of establishing and marking differences between people. Hall summarises this point of view with particular clarity: [identities] are more the product of the marking of difference and exclusion, than they are the sign of an identical, naturally-constituted unity . . . Above all, and directly contrary to the form in which they are constantly invoked, identities are constructed through, not outside, difference . . . identities can function as points of identification and attachment only because of their capacity to exclude. (Hall 1996: 4.5) From this perspective, knowing who I am is a matter of distinguishing and distancing myself from you and you, and from that person over there. The recognition of ¡®us¡¯ hinges mainly upon our not being ¡®them¡¯. In Benhabib¡¯s words, ¡®Since every search for identity includes differentiating oneself from what one is not, identity politics is always and necessarily a politics of the creation of difference¡¯ (1996: 3). Note the use of words such as ¡®only¡¯, ¡®always¡¯ and ¡®necessarily¡¯. Note too that identification with and differentiation from are seen as dissimilar processes: ¡®differentiation from¡¯ permits ¡®identification with¡¯ to happen, and is thus logically prior and apparently more significant. Difference almost appears to have become the defining principle of collectivity, the fulcrum around which the human world revolves. The second proposition shared by the difference theorists about which one should, at least, be very sceptical is their argument that difference and identity have become more marked and more significant over the last few decades: ¡®cultural diversity is, indeed, the fate of the modern world¡¯ (Hall 1992: 8). We are, apparently, living in a new globalised epoch of diversity and identity politics. Since I will discuss this further in Chapter 3, I will merely register my disagreement here and move on, to focus on two reasons for rejecting the notion that knowing who¡¯s who is primarily a matter of difference. 20 similarity and difference � SIMILARITY AND DIFFERENCE In the first place, and leaving aside the established meanings of the word ¡®identity¡¯ discussed earlier in this chapter . for definitions can always be contested . emphasising difference misses the utter interdependence, whether in abstract logic or messy everyday practice, of similarity and difference. Neither makes sense without the other, and identification requires both. And, indeed, some of the writers against whom I am arguing appear to recognise, to some extent, the necessary interplay of similarity and difference: identity is always particular, as much about difference as about shared belonging . . . identity can help us to comprehend the formation of the fateful pronoun ¡®we¡¯ and to reckon with the patterns of inclusion and exclusion that it cannot help but to create. This may be one of the most troubling aspects of all: the fact that the formation of every ¡®we¡¯ must leave out or exclude a ¡®they¡¯, that identities depend on the marking of difference. (Gilroy 1997: 301.302) Gilroy appears to acknowledge the role of similarity, or ¡®shared belonging¡¯. Having done so, he nonetheless privileges difference: it remains, for him, the active principle upon which knowing who¡¯s who depends. Against this, the point is that, logically and in everyday interaction, it doesn¡¯t make sense to separate similarity and difference in this way, or to accord one greater significance. We cannot have one without the other: to identify something as an A is to assert that it has certain properties in common with all other As, and that it differs from Bs, Cs and so on. To say who I am is to say who or what I am not, but it is also to say with whom I have things in common. For example, one¡¯s personal name is one of the definitive markers of individual difference. But, to name oneself is generally also to establish one¡¯s public gender. To those with the appropriate contextual knowledge it also positions one in terms of family or kin-group membership. Further local knowledge may enable one¡¯s ethnicity or religion, or both, to be established. Thus, while a personal name signifies individual distinctiveness, it also positions its bearer in terms of collective similarities (and, of course, differences). And there is a more serious problem. If it were possible to assert one¡¯s distinctive difference from others without simultaneously indicating those with whom one might have stuff in common, all one could actually do is communicate who or what one is not. Unless one could exhaustively deny the entire array of possible persons, or kinds of person, that one might be similarity and difference 21 � .bar one, of course . it would not be sufficient to communicate who or what one is. Even if one could perform such an implausible feat, it is not clear how one would then give substance to what or who one might claim to be. Difference on its own is simply not enough to establish who¡¯s who. It doesn¡¯t work. The conventional solution to this problem is to use the concept of ¡®identity¡¯ to denote relationships of similarity, and to say that ¡®identity¡¯ and ¡®difference¡¯, although utterly distinct, should be thought about together, a view that can be traced back at least as far as Locke in the late seventeenth century (see Anthias 1998; Benhabib 1996; Taylor 1998; Woodward 1997b). This might be fair enough, although it arguably underestimates the degree to which similarity and difference, in order to make any sense at all, must each imply the other. It also flies in the face of what some of the difference theorists actually say. Hall, for example, is emphatic that he is not concerned with ¡®identity in its traditional meaning (that is, an all-inclusive sameness . . . without internal differentiation)¡¯ (1996: 4). His model of identification and attachment . derived from a cultural reading of psychoanalysis . depends upon the exclusion of others and the establishment of difference as the foundation of personal meaning and self-regard. Similarity is not even in the frame. A more significant difficulty with this position is that separating identification and differentiation from each other seems, in practice, to end up privileging the notion of ¡®identification with¡¯. In this mode, identity becomes coterminous with uniformity and conformity, if not outright conformism. Butler, for example, seems only able to understand identity as attachment and subjective conformism. In pursuit of the liberating power of difference, her argument for the subversion and transcendence of identity . or, rather, of what she sees as the illusion, or trap, of identity . is grounded in ¡®the presumption that identities are self-identical, persisting through time as the same, unified and internally coherent¡¯ (Butler 1990: 16). The similarity to Hall¡¯s view, quoted above, is striking. It is only Butler¡¯s understandings of identity and difference as utterly distinct from each other, and of identity as identification with, that allows her the luxury of even imagining the transcendence of identity. The emphasis upon ¡®identification with¡¯ ignores two linked realities: that identification is also a matter of classifying oneself and others, and that classification depends upon the interplay of similarity and difference. Against the utopian possibilities evoked by Butler, it is vital to recognise that absolute differentiation from others . no less than absolute absorption in others . is likely to be a very rare bird indeed (not to mention flightless and in constant danger of extinction). 22 similarity and difference � To summarise the argument so far, knowing who¡¯s who involves processes of classification and signification that necessarily invoke criteria of similarity and difference. Attending to difference on its own, or even simply emphasising difference, cannot provide us with a proper account of how it is that we know who¡¯s who, or what¡¯s what, in the human world. To say this does not, of course, imply any ¡®objectively real¡¯ sense of similarity or difference. It is constructions or attributions of similarity and difference, made by people engaging in the identification of self and others, with which I am concerned. The above criticisms converge in a recognition that foregrounding difference underestimates the reality and significance of human collectivity. Whatever else might be involved in knowing who¡¯s who, it is undeniably a matter of similarity and solidarity, of belonging and community, of ¡®us¡¯ and ¡®we¡¯. In this, as in other respects, the focus on difference arguably flies in the face of the observable realities of the human world. ¡®Us¡¯, ¡®we¡¯, ¡®community¡¯, ¡®solidarity¡¯ are, however, words that should carry a health warning. They are deeply political . communitarianism and nationalism are good examples of their ideological potential . and we should at least approach them with apposite caution. Charles Taylor¡¯s or Judith Butler¡¯s discussions of the dangers inherent in ¡®identity as sameness¡¯, and their arguments for, respectively, the foundational necessity to democracy of the recognition of difference, or the progressively subversive character of difference, are worth remembering. So, too, is Samuel Johnson¡¯s famous eighteenth-century characterisation of patriotism as the last refuge of the scoundrel. We should also remember that these notions are imagined. In Anthony Cohen¡¯s words (1985), they are ¡®symbolic constructs¡¯. They are, however, capable of being extremely powerful imaginings, in terms of which people act. They are anything but imaginary, in that they are enormously consequential. Solidarity, once it is successfully conjured up, is a powerful force. We should also recognise that invocations of similarity are intimately entangled with the conjuring up of difference. One of the things that people have in common in any group is precisely the recognition of other groups or categories from whom they differ. It cannot be otherwise: Hughes understood this in the late 1940s, and Barth developed the idea further (Barth 1969; Hughes 1994: 91.96). But to acknowledge this is a far cry from calling up difference alone . or even mainly . as the primary arbiter of who¡¯s who. The human world simply doesn¡¯t work like that. similarity and difference 23 � THEORISING IDENTITY My other basic objection to the difference paradigm is that concentrating on difference makes it difficult to deal with the core questions of social theory, or even, perhaps, to engage in social theory at all. In this context, I take the consistent, and connected, core concerns of social theory to be: ¡®How should we understand social change?¡¯ and ¡®How are we to understand the relationship between the individual and the collective?¡¯ (Jenkins 2002a: 15.20). Focusing only, or even mainly, on difference is unhelpful if one wants to understand social change, in that it doesn¡¯t accord with observable realities. Put simply, collective mobilisation in the pursuit of shared objectives is a characteristic theme of history and social change. It may not be the only important process at work, but it is to be found wherever one looks, and, unavoidably, collective politics involves collective imaginings of similarity as well as of difference (witness the remarks of Marx and Simmel, quoted earlier). To make the point from a different direction, the consequences and processes of the change from agrarian to industrial lifestyles and production . as Durkheim outlined in 1893, in The Division of Labour in Society (1984) . can, at least in part, be understood by looking at the interplay and significance of relationships of similarity and difference. Moving on to the relationship between individuality and collectivity, the problem is even more fundamental. I am not sure that it is possible to have any comprehension of the collective dimensions of social life . other than a merely additive, arithmetical model . if we emphasise difference. If knowing who¡¯s who is essentially, or even largely, a matter of fission and exclusion, then where does the ¡®more-than-the-sum-of-the-parts¡¯ that is an enduring mystery of everyday human life come from? In this context, it is noteworthy that most theorists of difference . with the exception of Butler . routinely use collective notions such as ¡®culture¡¯ or ¡®society¡¯ that are in considerable tension with their fetishisation of difference. Perhaps they simply have no choice. There is also a more general point to be made. Theory of all kinds depends upon three linked processes: abstraction, generalisation and comparison. Social theory is no exception. A model of the human world that prioritises difference offers, at best, only very limited scope for generalisation and comparison. At least one difference theorist has acknowledged this: One of the dangers of focusing on difference may be a retreat into empiricism. For the very assertion of the existence of differences involves 24 similarity and difference � taking at face value the appearance of living in a diverse and fragmented universe. There is a failure to interrogate what may lie behind or beneath these surface appearances, to find connections and commonalities. (Anthias 1998: 509, her emphasis) Apropos empiricism, Anthias is right, although she may understate the case. The problem that she identifies may . and only apparently paradoxically . explain why discussions of difference are so rarely based in systematic empirical research; why there is a dependence, at best, on loose qualitative description; and why the essay is the dominant form. Perhaps this is the only way to disguise, and keep at bay, the ever-present threats of empiricism and a-theoria. Finally, there is something other to think about than social theory, and something more important. One source of the difference paradigm was the post-1989 realignment and reorientation of left-wing politics; it is easy to sympathise with it as a political move that was appropriate to the times. One of the ethical impulses that stand behind the emphasis on difference is a plea, not just for tolerance of difference, but for its enthusiastic embrace: If ever-growing social complexity, cultural diversity and a proliferation of identities are indeed a mark of the postmodern world, then all the appeals to our common interest as humans will be as naught unless we can at the same time learn to live with difference. (Weeks 1990: 92) Leaving aside the supposed historical novelty or post-modernity of difference, we have returned to Taylor¡¯s ¡®politics of recognition¡¯ (1994), a call to arms, whether liberal or radical, on behalf of pluralism. A call that is difficult to ignore. These are values that need to be defended, nurtured and supported, no less today than fifty or a hundred years ago. They are not, however, enough. There are pressing public issues that are simply not addressed by proclaiming the positivities of difference, or arguing for tolerance and pluralism. They concern collective belonging, collective disadvantage and, not least, the relationship between the freedom to be different, on the one hand, and equality and collective responsibility, on the other. Thinking about these issues . none of which is either new or simple . requires a model of identification that places similarity and difference at its heart, on an equal footing with each other. Even if it is not, to echo Bauman (1999: 190), time to ¡®recall universalism from exile¡¯ . certainly not an unreconstructed universalism, anyway . it is, perhaps, similarity and difference 25 � time for a return to a politics which recognises responses to collective ills other than the purely privatised and individualised. WHO¡¯S WHO (AND WHAT¡¯S WHAT) I have argued here, and in Chapter 1, that the human world is unimaginable without some means of knowing who others are and some sense of who we are. Since, unlike other primates, we don¡¯t rely on smell or gestures . although these aren¡¯t insignificant in face-to-face identification . one of the first things that we do on meeting a stranger is attempt to identify them, to locate them on our ¡®mindscapes¡¯ (Zerubavel 1997). The cues that we rely upon include embodiment, clothing, language, answers to questions, incidental or accidental disclosures of information, and information from third parties. Our efforts are not always successful, either: ¡®mistaken identity¡¯ is a common enough experience to be a staple of folktales and literature. Equally familiar is the theme of ¡®lost¡¯ or ¡®confused¡¯ identity: people who can¡¯t prove who they are, who appear not to know ¡®who they are¡¯, who are one thing one moment and something else the next, who are in the throes of ¡®identity crises¡¯. Situations such as these provide occasional cause to reflect upon identity. We try to work out who strangers are even when we are merely observing them. We work at presenting ourselves, so that others will work out who we are along the lines that we wish them to. We speculate about whether so-and-so is doing that because of ¡®her identity¡¯. And we talk. We talk about whether people are born gay or become gay because of their upbringing. About what it means to be ¡®grown up¡¯. About the differences between the English and the Scots (or the Welsh, or the Irish). About the family who have just moved in round the corner: we shake our heads, after all you can¡¯t expect anything else, they¡¯re from the wrong part of town. About ¡®Arabs¡¯, ¡®Muslims¡¯, ¡®rag heads¡¯ and ¡®terrorists¡¯. We talk about identity all the time (although we may not always use the word itself). Change, or its prospect, is particularly likely to provoke concerns about identity. The transformation of everyday life in the affluent West during the 1950s and 1960s, for example, occurred amid argument and conflict about gender, sexuality, generation, race, class, imperialism and patriotism; all of which speak very directly to our topic here. More recently in the United Kingdom, monetary union in Europe . and, indeed, every other aspect of the European Union, from decision-making in the Council of Ministers to the regulations governing sausage manufacture . conjures up the ghosts of centuries of strife with our continental neighbours and is interpreted as another attempt to undermine British national identity. 26 similarity and difference � Public concern about identity may wax and wane, but the perpetual bottom line is that we can¡¯t live routine lives as humans without identification, without knowing . and sometimes puzzling about . who we are and who others are. This is true no matter where we are, or what our way of life or language. Without repertoires of identification we would not be able to relate to each other meaningfully or consistently. We would lack that vital sense of who¡¯s who and what¡¯s what. Without identity there could simply be no human world, as we know it. This is the most basic sense in which identity matters. Accordingly, my focus in the rest of this book is primarily on the mundane matter of how identification works, and the production and reproduction of identities during interaction. Before getting down to this in detail, however, there is one final issue to address, the relationship between modernity and identity. This is the subject of the next chapter. similarity and difference 27 �