I'd like to agree with Eugene that we ought to reformulate the
notion of identity somewhat to bring out its thoroughly
_relational_ character. The term, at least in English, has
connotations of 'attributes of an isolated unit', and
participates in the old folk metaphysics which said that entities
had intrinsic properties. Physics has had to give that view up,
and so have a lot of other systematic analytical discourses in
our times. The 'red' of an apple is as relational as the 'mother'
of someone's identity. Something looks red under some conditions
of interaction with something that can see it as red, and a
person's mother-identity gets constructed similarly only under
some conditions of interaction with something in relation to
which it counts as a mother (ie. a child), and gets counted as a
mother (by an observer-construer of the mother-child
dyad/relation).
Identities are relational in their origins: every aspect of an
identity gets constructed interactionally and socially, both
directly, and through the social-cultural mediational means of
available categories and contrasts for forming identities
(possible roles, or identity-specific behavior patterns, etc.).
Identities are also relational in their meaning: every aspect of
an identity makes sense as such either by contrast with an
opposed identity alternative (in-group/out-group,
solidarity/exclusion), or through complementarity with an
interactive partner-identity, either heterogeneous (mother-child,
boss-employee, woman-man, teacher-student) or homogeneous
(friend-friend, co-worker - co-worker, American-American).
What is interesting here is how the contrastive and complementary
models get transformed into one another. Is it a fundamental part
of the identity of a Christian to be not-a-Jew? not-a-Muslim? In
some times and places it has been. But to be a Christian is also
presumably to assume a complementary identity in relation to
other Christians that may have nothing to do with contrasts to
other religions (say in large all-Christian communities with
little contact or interest in non-Christians), as in how one
behaves towards them and expects them to behave to you, and also
a complementary identity in relation to Christ (savior-saved).
Note that the latter cannot be transformed into a contrast
relation (you are not saved because you are not-the-savior).
Muslim identity, I believe, is based even more exclusively on the
Muslim - Allah relation (complementary), roughly 'obedient one'-
'Master'.
A contrast relation, like gay-straight, as Bill noted, does not
simply create, say, a gay identity as 'not-heterosexual' (though
that may be the main meaning of the gay identity for non-gays),
which produces an intensional class (contrast-identity
solidarity), but also arises out of a set of complementary
identity relations among gays (e.g. top-bottom, lover-lover,
gayfriend-gayfriend), which produces not a class or category, but
a community.
Sometimes the notion of intrinsic (non-relational) identity
conceals contrast (or more rarely complement) relations that a
group or individual does not wish to acknowledge (or is unaware
of). How many heterosexual men, for example, acknowledge that
part of their identity was formed at an early age by the need to
be and be taken by others to be not-a-fairy? To what degree do
males even acknowledge that a large part of what it means to be a
man is to be not-like-a-woman? Or how much do modern European
nationalities acknowledge the dependence of their identities on
contrasts with the peoples they colonized, exploited, and
despised (not-a-nigger, not-a-chink, not-a-heathen-redskin, not-
a-little-brown-bugger :: forgive the inflamatory terms, the anger
they inspire is part of my meaning::), and more generally as not-
savage, not-primitive, not any of the exotic contrasts created
more to define European identities than to characterize Others
more emically. Of course these contrast-identity denials are not
reciprocal. Gays, women, and people of color are only too aware
of the extent to which their _category identity_ (as opposed to
their community-identity) is the product of straight male
Europeans trying to construct themselves (as naturally superior,
of course). To construct an identity for themselves which had to
be relational.
None of these ideas are new to sophisticated identity theory, but
they may be helpful for all us 'amateurs'. JAY.
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JAY LEMKE.
City University of New York.
BITNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM
INTERNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU