I'm wondering if someone who knows more than I about Tajfel and Social
Identity Theory could tell me if he or any in his group have written about
the specifically historical character of identities. I am not as familiar
with his work as I should be, so I ask in humble ignorance :-)
In my brief reading of Tajfel, what I find missing are the kinds of dynamics
described by Emily in her summary of _Writing Diaspora_. For example,
Western critics' frustration at "Westernized" writers from Africa or Asia,
has to be understood in a very particular context--and not just a
"post-colonial" one where relations are defined in terms of power
differences, but also in terms of critics' shift in their own "cultural
construction of taste;" patterns of publishing; _and_ the unique time in
history that this takes place. It may be that this debate about
Westernization of African texts was nearly (though not altogether) impossible
50 or 60 years ago. Certainly its meaning would be quite different....
If identities are, as Jay suggests, relational in their origin because formed
in interaction and because they employ cultural tools in their formation,
then both the local _sequencing_ of individuals' experience and some of the
larger social-historical changes in social practices will matter as to
in-group/out-group dynamics and the relations among persons with different
group identities.
I know Tajfel _was_ interested in concrete historical groups, but does he
address these dynamics in his work?
Bill Penuel
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