minority and ethnic relations
What do we mean by the social construction of identity? Any attempt to compare the suffering of the blacks and Jews would seem likely to be felled by the waves of invidious comparisons. That is because any such comparison is likely to be seen, however obliquely, as an endeavour to answer the question: which group has suffered more- blacks or Jews? Indicatively, this question could be perceived to address the point of not who suffered more, but why did they suffer? This can be answered in relation to the social construction of identity. The Jews and Blacks identities were socially identified and regarded by others as not belonging to the majority group during that historical period. So what do we mean when we talk about the social construction of identity? The concept of "identity" has always been blurred but in recent years, the study of identity has been greatly enhanced by cross-cultural studies in history, sociology, anthropology and psychology. The key point of departure for much discussion is the 'real world' observation that nationalist, regional, racial and ethnic mobilisations are occurring globally and pervasively (Cohen, 1994). However, at the same time, within national, racial or regional units of identificatio
One of the earliest and classic examples of this is Galileo, who decentered the earth itself when he demonstrated that the planets and the sun did not revolve around us. Primarily because the construction sites are difficult to separate from one another and therefore identity construction on a social basis seldom involves only one site, but occurs simultaneously in many parts of the social environment. Virtually all the intellectual breakthroughs of the modern world have threatened simplistic notions of self regard and identity and the over-inflation of our egos. n, there are other kinds of groupings that are organised often on the social axes of age, gender, class, religion, race or disability that form their own identity. It is these sites where social actors make claims, define one another, jockey for position, eliminate or initiate competition, exercise or peruse power that variously encourage or discourage, create or transform and invent identities (Cornell and Hartmann, 1998). This doesn't mean that class consciousness does not exist, but rather there are other competing claims for affiliation that can't be reduced to epiphenomena. What this also demonstrates is that a change in the, foundations and boundaries of the opportunities and constraints of the construction sites that each group encounters has potential implications for identity and identity change. For example, as suggested by Cornell and Hartmann, politics may have an impact on labour or housing markets; economic success may change the way outsides view group members; and culture infuses all these arenas with particular ways of thinking and talking that have implications for collective identities (1998). These data have dished the old 'essentialisms' such as, the Marxist idea that all social identity could essentially be reduced to class identity (Cohen, 1994). Demonstrating that people generally build identities by reshaping and piecing together chunks of existing social structure rather then inventing new forms (Tilly, 1996), for example, ethnics groups consist of social categories defined by beliefs concerning shared origins, culture and social relations. As mentioned above, social construction of identities can occur in any realm of society, however, critical construction arenas such as politics, labour markets, residential space, social institutions, culture and daily experience, impact further on identity construction. The modern study of social identity has yielded convincing evidence that the phenomenon of multiple social identities is much more common than previously had been assumed. Identities are constructed as human populations, carrying their own characteristics, ideas, and agendas; engage the ideas, opportunities, and actors involved in these various sites (Cornell and Hartmann, 1998). This provoked his compatriots to hang him for this bad news. Before we can begin to understand the social constructions of identity we need to analyse how and why these identities come to be assimilated in our society? Although identity construction may occur in any part of a society through social change and circumstance and of human interpretation and action, it must be noted that social construction occurs contingently upon the situation in which the groups find themselves: the context in which identity construction occurs and the social factors- aspects of the world external to the group in question- that shape that construction (Cornell and Hartmann, 1998).
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Acceptance Essays
