(See also all the other files in this folder – especially consumption – all the files in the social differentiation folder – especially ethnicity and gender – the media file and the gender file in the health folder.)

Sociologists are rather vague about the meaning of ‘identity’. Gordon Marshall [The Oxford Dictionary of Sociology, 1998, OUP] writes of "one’s sense of self and one’s feelings and ideas about oneself." Identity is usually understood to be an individual attribute but, to a greater or lesser extent, each of us shares our identity with others who have similar regional, class, age, ethnic and gender locations. Thus, expressions like national identity (see below) and ethnic identity (see the ethnicity file in the social differentiation folder) which denote collectivist, rather than individualised, views of identity.

"Eclecticism is the degree zero of contemporary general culture: one listens to reggie, watches a western, eats McDonald's food for lunch and local cuisine for dinner, wears Paris perfume in Tokyo and 'retro' clothes in Hong Kong." – Jean-Francois Lyotard, 1984, The Postmodern Condition

Hall S, 1992, The Question of Cultural Identity, in Hall S.et al (eds) ‘Modernity and Its Futures’

Jameson F, 1991, Post-modernism or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism

Lash S. and Urry J., 1994, Economics of Signs and Space

(à the location file for more on the debate on communal identity)

McGrew A, 1992, A Global Society, in Stuart Hall et al (eds) ‘Modernity and Its Futures’

Jameson F, 1991, Post-modernism or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism

(See also the section globalisation and loss of 'British identity' and the item Globalisation: view from the left (1), both in the globalisation file in this folder.)

• issue-based associations (women's liberation, the environment, peace, civil liberties . . .)
• proto-communities - based on shared lifestyles (ravers, new-agers, surfers, environmentalists . . .)
• media-bonded associations - Dick Hebdidge [Hiding in the Light, 1990] has suggested that advances in information technology allow people to form alliances (social networks) which transcend not only the confines of locality but also those of class, ethnicity and gender (the internet is a good example of a media bonding)
• tribal associations - Zygmunt Bauman [Intimations of Postmodernity, 1992] used the term 'tribalism' to denote the trend towards associations based on shared identities (ethnic, sexual, age, gender, taste, sporting affiliation ...).

[Spource: McKie A, 1999, Tribes, Henley Forecasting Centre / Barclays Life]

Bauman Z,1992, Intimations of Postmodernity

Beck U, 1992, The Risk Society

Stuart Hall has expressed concern that our personalities are becoming increasingly 'free-floating': as "social life becomes mediated by the global marketing styles, places, images . . . [we] are confronted by a range of different identities, each appealing to us, or rather to different parts of ourselves, from which it seems possible to choose." Frederic Jameson went so far as to assert that cultural fragmentation produces a kind of "schizophrenia in the form of a rubble of distinct and unrelated signifiers [images, symbols. . .]."

Hall S, 1992, The Question of Cultural Identity, in Hall S.et al (eds) ‘Modernity and Its Futures’

Jameson F, 1991, Post-modernism or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism

Bradley H, 1996, Fractured Identities: Changing Patterns of Inequality

Imelda Whelehan [Overloaded: Popular Culture and the Future of Feminism, 2000] argues that focussing on ‘lifestyle choices’ detracts attention from structural barriers to equality (gender, class, age, disability . . .). Whelehan thinks that the idea that young women now have control over their lives is one of popular culture’s great myths and Bradley is herself critical of postmodern analysis which downplays the importance of structural constraints. It must also be kept in mind that one's 'me' is self-selected under the influence of globally marketed style. (à the consumption file in this folder)

(See also English national identity, below.)

Lacan J, 19777, Ecrit

Goffman I, 1959, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life

Madonna's project mirrors the work of the American artist, Cindy Sherman, who created a series of self-portraits, Untitled Film Stills, in the 1970s and early 1980s which showed herself in an array of cinematic poses: heroine, femmes fatale, nice girl, troubled teenager etc. Her work, like Madonna's, can be seen as playing with the idea that femininity can take many forms in today's society. This proposition mirrors Gidden's views on the thoroughgoing reflexivity of human action which enables the inner self (or 'I') to constitute the public self (or 'me') of its choice in an ongoing process. Madonna, in I Want You, 1995

Glenn Ward, 1997, Teach Yourself Postmodernism

"Masses of people are concerned with their single life histories and particular emotion as never before; this concern has proved to be a trap rather than a liberation." – Richard Sennett, 1974, The Fall of Public Man

Over recent decades there has been an extraordinary proliferation of what Giddens calls 'reflexive resources': exercise videos, self-help manuals, fitness centres, health farms, diet books, advice columns, therapists and counsellors. And, each year in Britain, millions of pounds are spent on cosmetic surgery, tattooing, body piercing, hair transplants, vitamins and other health products, body-building equipment and waxing. In the U.S.A., scarring, skin-colour alteration and cryonics can be added to the list. Increasingly, the self becomes something we work on and strive to improve.

"The more legal and material hindrances women have broken through, the more strictly and heavily and cruelly images of female beauty have come to weigh upon us. During the past decade [the 1980s], women breached the power structure; meanwhile, eating disorders rose exponentially and cosmetic surgery became the fastest-growing medical speciality . . . It is no accident that so many potentially powerful women feel this way. We are in the midst of a violent backlash against feminism." – Naomi Wolf, 1990, The Beauty Myth

As well as surgery, a host of other procedures are available. Skin can be rejuvenated with acid skin peels and laser resurfacing; lines and scars can be treated with fat or silicone injections; lips can be plumped with collagen injections; and facial wrinkles can be treated with Botox (botulinum), a deadly toxin associated with virulent cases of food poisoning. Botox patients are given a series of 10 or so injections into their facial muscles along the wrinkle lines. The Botox paralyses muscle, smoothing away lines and – by making it impossible to frown – arresting the development of new ones. A single treatment costs £250 and lasts for about three months. Around 4,000 Britons get Botox treatment every month. Stars who use it include Madonna, Liz Hurley, Cliff Richard, Gloria Hunniford and Kylie Minogue. (See also the section on the body in question in the healt/gender file.)

"Apart from the ‘psychodynamic’ therapies which derive from the psychoanalytical school, there are many other types of therapy for the sufferer to choose from: ‘behavioural’ approaches, ‘cognitive’ approaches, Client-Centred Therapy, Transactional Analysis, Gestalt Therapy, Rational-Emotive Therapy, and hundreds of other varieties of therapy and counselling, which are flourishing in a rapidly deregulating market . . . We are looking, I would suggest, not so much at a breakthrough in enlightened understanding of distress as at the success of an enterprise." – David Smail, Special Professor in Clinical Psychology at the University of Nottingham, in The Origins of Unhappiness: A New Understanding of Personal Distress, 1993, HarperCollins

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Analysis by John Curtice and Anthony Heath of data gleaned from the National Centre for Social Research’s 17^th annual British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey suggests that English people have a weak sense of national identity. In 1999, only 18% said they wanted an English parliament. This is despite a growth in ‘Little Englishness’ – in 1997, only 7% of interviewees claimed an English identity untainted by ‘Britishness’, a proportion which rose to 17% over the next two years. However, in 1999 a majority of English people still felt at least as British as English.

Curtice J and Heath A, 2000, Is the British lion about to roar?, in the British Social Attitudes 17^th report, 2000-01 edition, ‘Focussing on Diversity’, NCSR/Sage

Curtice J and Seyd B, 2001, Is devolution strengthening or weakening the UK?, in the British Social Attitudes 18th report, 2001-02 edition, ‘Public policy, Social ties’, NCSR/Sage

Curtice and Heath (see above) suggest that one reason for a weak English national identity is that "power has been devolved to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland . . . The only part of the United Kingdom for which little has changed is England . . . [which] still lacks full control over any of its own affairs." It’s possible that this state of affairs is fostering a defensive / aggressive ‘little England’ mentality: "We have found that those who feel English are indeed different from those who feel British, being consistently more inclined to want to shut out the outside world." [Curtice J and Heath A, 2000, Is the British lion about to roar?, in the British Social Attitudes 17^th report, 2000-01 edition, ‘Focussing on Diversity’, NCSR/Sage]

The annual British Social Attitudes Survey is conducted by the National Centre for Social Research. It involves over 3,000 face-to-face interviews administered to a nationwide representative sample of households. All adults in the selected households who have been resident in Britain for at least six months are interviewed in their homes. Interviews cover a wide range of topics and the resultant data is analysed on a theme by theme basis by leading UK academics. For example, John Curtice, Professor of Politics at the University of Strathclyde, and Anthony Heath, Professor of Sociology at the University of Oxford, looked at all the data relating to the issues of national identity.

"Racism, violence, xenophobia, lager, vomit and fat men with tattooed beer bellies displayed like prize marrows at a church fete are not the curse of English football. They are the curse of England . . . the Scots and Irish do not have the profound identity crisis that plagues the English. When the broken glass has been swept away and the pools of dried blood washed from the pavement, it comes down to this – the English have absolutely no idea who they are." – Tony Parsons, Daily Mirror, 26^th June 2000

Tony Parsons (quoted above) argues that the narrow and aggressive version of Englishness currently on offer is the product of an imperial past, which ‘needs to be left for history’s dustbinmen’. Guibernau and Goldblatt [Identity and Nation, 2000, in Woodward K (ed) ‘Questioning Identity, Gender, Class, Nation’] take the view that England’s imperial history should not be ignored but rewritten "in different, less ethnocentric terms."

In an interview printed in the Observer on the 9^th December, 2001, Home Secretary David Blunkett contributed to the debate on national identity. He was responding to questions about ethnic conflict which had earlier in the year manifested itself in rioting in several northern English industrial towns (à the ethnicity file). Blunkett’s general theme was that in order to become more socially cohesive "we have got to develop a sense of identity and a sense of belonging." To this end, all citizens need a "modest grasp of English" and a "simple understanding of British democracy and culture." And new arrivals must accept the basic tenets of English culture: "We have norms of acceptability and those who come into our home – for that is what it is – should accept norms just as we would have to do if we went elsewhere."

• The phrase ‘those who come into our home’ is both paternalistic and offensive to ethnic minority people, many of whom were born in Britain.

• Some of the Home Secretary’s words re-enforce a stereotype of south Asians as monolingual, generally ignorant and uncultured beings. They also pander to the prejudices of racists. The BNP, which bears some responsibility for the riots Blunkett was discussing, expressed its delight. (à the file on migration)

• The idea that there is any connection between urban rioting and ignorance of the English language or ‘British culture’ is nonsense:

• The metaphor ‘our home’ conjures up an extraordinarily cosy image of a Britain devoid of the ‘racism, violence, xenophobia, lager, vomit and fat men with tattooed beer bellies’ (identified by Tony Parsons above). It also camouflages the ‘unhomely’ values of exploitation, materialism, greed and selfishness which underpin the social system.

• The concept ‘norms of acceptability’ suggests an homogenous culture, bearing little relationship to the reality of life in a plural society in which cultural codes have fragmented and where choice is more valued than communality. (à the postmodern culture and location files)

• Addressing south Asians on the subject of ‘acceptability’ is, to say the least, politically insensitive in a society with enough home-grown problems (poverty, alcohol abuse, domestic violence, family breakdown . . .), few of them particularly associated with ethnic minorities, to keep a Home Secretary busy for years. And the two behaviours identified by Blunkett as breaching ‘norms of acceptability’, namely forced marriage and female circumcision, are both illegal and disapproved of by the overwhelming majority of south Asians. Genital mutilation is unknown in most minority communities and advising south Asians in Britain to stop it is akin to telling English people living in India that they should, in the knowledge of Sarah Payne’s murder, abandon paedophilia.

• Blunkett’s analysis, focussing on the shortcomings of migrant cultures, diverts attention from far greater causes of ethnic conflict, such as social exclusion, poverty, unemployment, educational underachievement, poor housing and racism.

• Everyday contact between members of different ethnic groups is, as Blunkett pointed out, a pre-condition of integration. But our failure to satisfy that pre-condition – our inability to build even the foundations of a multi-cultural society – is not down to south Asians’ sub-cultural distinctiveness but to the ‘white flight’ from streets and schools which occurs as soon as a few non-whites move in. (à the ethnicity file and find – Ctrl+F – ‘white flight’) White ethnic minorities, with as much ‘cultural otherness’ as south Asians, do not induce ‘white flight’ and so have the option of integration.

• The justifier ‘just as we would have to do if we went elsewhere’ might amuse native Americans and Australians, or the people of any other country colonised by (mainly) British migrants. It might strike an ironic discord with Indians who remember the Raj. It might even bring wry smiles to the faces of the locals in Ibiza, Palma or Benidorm. But few would take it seriously.

A minority of (mainly poor, mainly young, mainly male) Bangladeshis and Pakistanis may well have developed "assertive ethnic identity reactions" [Steve Chapman, 2000, The meaning of ethnic identities, in Sociology Review, vol.10, no.2] to a society which hardly welcomes their presence and will be even less receptive after Blunkett’s speech. (à the ethnicity file in the social differentiation folder) But to lay the blame for ethnic conflict on the victims of racial intolerance and abuse is disingenuous. It will re-enforce the two principle forces which lay behind the summer 2001 riots: the alienation of young south Asians in Britain and the righteous indignation of their white persecutors. (à the reports on the 2001 riots in the ethnicity file)

(If you’re interested in this theme, it’s worth taking a look at Lord Parekh’s 2000 Runnymede Report into the Future of Multi-ethnic Britain, a summary of which can be found in the ethnicity file. See also Steve Chapman, 2001, Oh, to be . . . English?, in Sociology Review, vol.19, no.3, and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Who do we think we are? Imagining the New Britain.)

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