Notes: Identity

Identity- who we are and who we perceive ourselves to be. Our subjectivity.

1. Where and how you are brought up
2. Culture
3. Education

Expressions of Identity

1. Fashion
2. Culture and Music
3. Attitude
4. Profession and/or job
5. The way you speak

Identity is a dialogue between us and the world. Identity is a multi-determined battleground.

Stuart Hall

• Inventor of cultural studies
• Culture is the framework within which our identities are formed
• Production, ie what you produce, emits identity
• Representations are stereotypes
• Consumption is what we buy
• Regulation- like a boss and employee

Jacques Lacan: Identity Formation

• Hommelette: 'mirror stage'
• Sense of self is false as its an illusion of wholeness. Receiving it from others.
• Our own subjectivity is fragile.

Construction the 'other'

• Relies on the assumption of opposition and radical otherness
• Perpetuate negative stereotypes

Theories of identity

• Pot modern theorists disagree with essentialism

Social Constructivism is identity constructed from society- a series of facades.