Re: identity

Mary Bryson (brys who-is-at unixg.ubc.ca)
Wed, 14 Apr 1999 12:26:25 -0700

>
>At 06:58 PM 4/13/99 -0600, you wrote:
>> it is almost as if whites define themselves as whites through
>>negation - they are not black.
>>
>> rather like the way men define themselves as men - they don't have
>>feminine attributes.
>>
>> the way heterosexuals define themselves as heterosexuals - they
>>don't have homosexual relationships.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I read and re-read these sentences - jet lag, no doubt.
I think what strikes me is that there is a curious blending here of the
literal and the abstract. There are material entities, like "men" and then
abstractions like "define themselves" and I don't think they go together
seemlessly. The concept of "identity" is not usually talked about these
days as something transparent that people "do" to themselves. Identities
are taken up in complex sociocultural settings.
Maybe we could (re)read Franz Fanon's "Black Skin, White Masks" (1952) and
perhaps something recent, maybe even Diana Fuss' paper on Fanon in
"Identification Papers" (1995)?
Maybe we could have an on-line forum about how these kinds of analyses
might, or not, inform mainstream sociocultural models?

Mary

Mary Bryson, Associate Professor and UBC Scholar 98/99,
Faculty of Education, UBC
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