Identities | Race, Class, Gender, and Nationality
Edited by Linda Martin Alcoff and Eduardo Mendieta
f.published by Blackwell publishing ltd 2003
Chapters of importance:
-Introduction: Identities: Modern and Postmodern
Linda Martin Alcoff
p1
Part I: Foundations p9
-1 Independence and Dependence of Self-conciousness
G. W. f. Hegel
p11
-2 On the Jewish Question
Karl Marx
p17
-3 Consciousness and What is Unconcious
Sigmund Freud
p29
-4 The Self
George Herbert Mead
p32
Part IV: Gender/Sexuality p147
-20 Gender Trouble, Feminist Theory, and Psychoanalytic Discourse
Judith Butler
p201
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-Introduction: Identities: Modern and Postmodern
Linda Martin Alcoff
Social identities (ethnic, sex, nationality) centre of Political mobilisation since US cultural revolution 1960 p1
little agreement about the cause.
threat to democracy
In the West the principle social struggles of the modern era can be characterised firstly as struggles of social status, then social class and only then of social identity p2
oppression
"Why are so many people the world over so attached to their ethnic identity that they are willing to go to war over it, or is this commonly heard claim quite a mistaken interpretation of the real, underlying motives behind these motives?" p3
Why demand recognition of these identities than to rid oneself of them?
In Dissetation I think I would like to suggest away from these kind of identities, or perhapos I could touch on this that perhaps we will always be suade by our SOCIAL IDENTITY and this will always impact us, but in a self-portrait we can have a choice of an identity to assume, such as i don't know... simple example: being a bitch or being nice.
Identity is not in the main an individual affair.
Individuals create their own identity, not under conditions of their own choose p3
Stuart Hall "identities are names we give to the different ways we are positions by, and position ourselves within, the narratives of the past" (Hall 1990: 225) p3
Both imposed and self-made
Butler argues - biology is insufficient to explain all these differnt assossiations + attributes we have
identities need to be analysed not only in their cultural location but in relation to historial epoch too
Fanon shows how identity can affect inner life as well as outer life
fact of blackness
Hegel perhaps first to open discussion of the construction of identity in the west p4
fully developed self requires recognition from others
socially recognisable a necessity of the self
Marx deconstructs the political problem - how can a state repreenting general interests recognise special groups p4
Freud - complication for this debate
incoherant self, impotence of concious self, illusions of identtiy
Mead - individual self 'has' a perspective X
- individual self is 'in' a perspective √
perspective precedes individual
identities are essentially social objects
Part 1 establishes the philosophical genealogy of theories of social identites.
4 forms of identity powerful: race, class, nationality and sexuality
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-1 Independence and Dependence of Self-conciousness
G. W. f. Hegel p11
---Master and servant
Self-conciousness exists in itself.
it is by simply being recognised or acknowledged
I'm lost already... it's distinct by at the same time not entirely seperate, title implies a domineering over the concious....
spiritual unity, brings about a process of recognition...
---1. The Double Self-conciousness
self-conciosness itself has a self-conciounsess from outside itself. p11
talks about being in the other???
self-conciousness in relation to another self-conciousness
recognition
Yup, still lost... is this two independent self-conciousnesses engaging with each other? AH
---2. The conflict of the opposed
Self-conciousness
to be ego, it is individual p12
referring to them as objects
existing for themselves not yet surfaces ie self conciousness...
actions of each other
- that self conciousness is merely pure self-existence, being-for-self " p12-13
the person may be recognised as a person by not have attained truth of recognition as an independebt self-conciousness
Could this perhaps be talking about say a child... a child of 2months old may lack a certain self awareness, as would say someone who is brain dead, but is clearly a person... perhaps/
negate each other
sublimate
"The one is independent whose essential nature is to be for itself, the other is dependent whose essence is life or existence for another. The former is the Master, or Lord, the latter the Bondsman" p13
---3. Master and Servant
Rule of the master
master is the conciousness that exists for itself...
mediated by other conciousnesses
---Anxiety
sovereign master, servant still exists for itself
shaping and fashioning
object?? what is this object they keep referring to.
---The spirit
reason is spirit
reason is conciously aware of the world and itself
Perhaps it's referrring to inner states as separate consciousnesses... such as reason, worry, sadness... they are different identities that become more prominent in certain situations... that could kind of make sense but it may not be the case. Either that or someone else has already written about it...
unity of objectivity and subjectivity
substance...?
CLARIFICATION FROM SPARKNOTES
http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/hegel/section2.rhtml
-Hegel believes that consciousness of objects necessarily implies
some awareness of self, as a subject, which is separate from the
perceived object
-one becomes aware of
oneself by seeing oneself through the eyes of another
-Hegel explains that the realization of self-consciousness
is really a struggle for recognition between two individuals bound
to one another as unequals in a relationship of dependence. One
person is the bondsman and one is the servant. The bondsman, or
servant, is dependent on the lord. Because he is aware that the
lord sees him as an object rather than as a subject (i.e., as a
thing, rather than as a thinking, self-aware being), the lord frustrates
his desire to assert his pure self-consciousness.
-Precisely because it is so abstract, the section
has been interpreted in many different ways.
Some of the abstract things he describes may just describe positions in life such as employee and manager, or mother / son relationships, perhaps... but yes it's interesting to learn about oneself because of one another... I can see how that makes sense, self awareness i spossible through awareness of others.
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-2 On the Jewish Question
Karl Marx
NOT RELEVANT
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-3 Consciousness and What is Unconcious
Sigmund Freud
p29
Simply an introductory chapter to Freud ( a nice prelude to when I study him in detail later in the dissertation
division of the physical into the conscious and what is unconscious is the fundamental premise of phycho analysis.
dreams nessesitate a view (not above)
"Being conscious" is purely a descriptive term, relies on perception
idea... capable of becoming concious, latent
Conscious, self-conscious, unconscious... I believe I need to clearly understand these seperate terms...
self-conscious - Aware of oneself as an individual or of one's own being, actions, or thoughts.
unconscious- Lacking awareness and the capacity for sensory perception; not conscious.
such ideas cannot become conscious because things oppose them
repression and resistance
concept of the unconscious from the theory of repression
Two types of unconsciousness, one which can become conscious and the other is repressed.
ego controls
Interesting, perhaps not entirely relevenat for a first chapter of my dissertation
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Quick background check on G H MEAD
source: http://sociology.about.com/od/Profiles/p/George-Herbert-Mead.htm
1863 - 1931
Theory of the self: self is a social emergent. Individual selves are products of social interactions. not present at birth but arises through social interaction
3 activities the self is developed: Play, Language + Game
Language: allows us to take on the role of the other
Play: allows us to pretend roles and express that of others. Role-playing essential in self-consciousness + self
Game: internalise roles of others to understand 'rules of the game'
Theory of Generalised other: organised social group
An individual defines his behaviour depending of the context of the group
Concept of the "I" and the "Me"
The self has 2 sides
Me = expectations and generalisations of others (generalised other)
I = response to the me.
The generalised other is how we keep control over our individual members
- Mind, Self, and Society (1934)
- The Philosophy of the Act (1938)
- The Philosophy of the Present (1932)
Suggested Reading
George Herbert Mead
-The background of the genesis of the self
'the problem now presents itself as to how, in detail, a self arises' p32
exchange of gestures between animals - the conduct is the outcome of this preparation
"the meaning of a gesture by one organism, to repeat, is found in the response of another organism to what would be the completion of the act of the first organism which that gesture indicates and initiates" p32
symbols in our mind for things, talking about a chair not actually thinking about the chair are we?
language symbol
anything you say that has any meaning is universal
there is a language of speech, language of hands, there may be a language of the expression of the countenance.
"A person who is saying something is saying to himself what he says to others; otherwise he does not know what he is talking about: p33
Things that don't arise in others the same as ourselves such as bullying.
"It is the task not only of the actor but of the artist as well to find the sort of expression that will arouse in others what is going on in himself" p33
Well this is a lovely little quote, which may ease the transition from talking about these metaphysical principles of the self and ease that into the art and photography... They are expressions of ideas/the self and we try and create something that will have the intended affect in others, even if we can't achieve that as things can lose their context from being lost in time etc...
Don't always use language to call out the same emotional stimuli in others, but we reply in way that supports it, such as sympathy/empathy
play, child pretended to be a Mother, dogs play acting, attacking.
"The game represents the passage in the life of the child from taking the role of others in play to the organised part that is essential to self-consciousness in the full sense of the term" p35
Play, The Game, and the generalised Other.
Were speaking of the self arising as an object...
previously spoken of these from POV of a child
difference between play + game, striking example from primitive people
definite structure of a relationship
of the other, the child must have an understanding of the rules of the game
Such as basketball, his acts are determined by assumption of other peoples acts in the game
Their attitudes affect his
"We get then an 'other' which is an organisation of the attitudes of those involved in the same process" p36 = The generalised other
So Im thinking now with this we have our self in whic we act and do things with and this is one kind of identity, but then we also seem to exert other identities which fall into this generalised other group.. So I may be part of a general group of the UK or be identified as a gay male... These are other identities which I may feel apart of and act within certain attitudes whch I may attribute to myself...
IE Football 'my team is winning' their victories feel like my victories, etc
The individual takes the attitude of the social whole towards himself without reference to expression or any individuals
"The self-conscious human individual, then, takes or assumes the organised social attitudes of the given social group or community to which he belongs....." p37
The game has certain rules by which to play with
The child has no definite character, no definite personality p37
Property itself is a very abstract concept
unfortunate to mix up consciousness and self-consciousness
not on the same level
consciousness - reference to the field of experience
self-consciousness - ability to call out in ouselves definite responses belonging to others of a group
"A man alone fortunately or unfortunately, has access to his own toothache, but this is not what we mean by self-conciousness" p40
We cannot be ourselves unless we are also members in whom there is a community of attitudes which control the attitudes of all p40
"The individual possesses a self only in relation to the selves of the other members of his social group; and the structure of his self expresses or reflects the general behaviour patter of this social group to which he belongs, just as does the structure pf the self of every other individual belonging to this social group" p40
Simon Johnson
www.thephilosophicalphotographer.co.uk
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