lecture 4 Identity

Identity!

This lecture was all about identity obviously, but also the lecture spot lighted various aspects of identity that could benefit our practice, such as how identity was approached historically. but also to look into the Foucault's 'Discourse' methodology to consider post modern theories and to consider identity today.

There are two main theories of identity: Essentialism and Anti-essentialism.

Essentialism

Essentialism is the traditional approach to identity and states various rules, that include but are not limited to the notions that our biological make-up makes us who we are and this is governed by an inner essence that makes us who we are. Post-Modernism disagrees with this theory.

Physiognomy is an essentialist theory that has various values that aren't necessarily agreed with, such as the fact that they believe the intelligence is derived from the angle of the face, if the face has a vertical line where the eye brow joins the chin then this person is considered to be more intelligent than that of someone who has an angled line. this is legitimising racism due to the nature of the human body, here is an example:

as you can see its quite a radical notion due to its heavy racial standing.

There are various stages of historical identity:

Pre modern identity

personal identity is stable, defined by long standing roles. where institutions determined your identity, such as: Marriage, The Church, monarchy, Government, the State and work.

Modern identity

modern societies begin to offer a wider range of social roles. Possibility to start ‘choosing’ your identity, rather than simply being born into it. People start to ‘worry’ about who they are. possibly from the rise of artists and media which is widely consumed, Baudelaire introduces concept of the ‘flaneur’ (gentleman-stroller).

Post-modern identity

accepts a ‘fragmented ‘self’. Identity is constructed.

this is where the analysis of discourse started:

what is a discourse?

‘… a set of recurring statements that define a particular cultural ‘object’ (e.g., madness, criminality, sexuality) and provide concepts and terms through which such an object can be studied and discussed.’ Cavallaro, (2001)

Here are a few examples of discourse:

Age

Class

Gender

Nationality

Race/ethnicity

Sexual orientation

Education

Income

here is a good quote surrounding the issue of identity: 

‘ “Identity” is a hopelessly ambiguous idea and a 

double-edged sword.  It may be a war-cry of 

individuals, or of the communities that wish to be 

imagined by them.  At one time the edge of identity 

is turned against “collective pressures” by 

individuals who resent conformity and hold dear 

their own ways of living (which “the group” would 

decry as prejudices) and their own ways of living 

(which “the group” would condemn as cases of 

“deviation” or “silliness”, but at any rate of 

abnormality, needing to be cured or punished’

Bauman (2004), Identity, page 76

This lecture benefits me because of the writing task I have to complete where I have to analyse and compare two animations which are solidly based on identity, so this lecture made the process alot easier as it let me understand identity from its historical origin.