Cultural Identity Politics in the (Post-)Transitional Societies

Cultural Identity Politics in the (Post-)Transitional Societies
Anthony Giddens defines self-identity as “the self as reflexively understood by the
person in terms of her or his biography” (Giddens, 1991: 53). It would not be static but
“something that has to be routinely created and sustained in the reflexive activities of the
individual” (Giddens, 1991: 52). Self-identity means the descriptions that an individual
makes of his or her role in the world, of how he or she is different from others, and of
what he or she has in common with others. It is influenced by and continuously produced
and reproduced by social practices of humans in society. The various relationships
that humans enter and the experiences they have in these relationships shape how an
individual understands and describes himself or herself. Self-identity forms a foundation
of communication processes in social relationships by which it is enabled and constrained.
In particular phases of transition or loss, and the emergence of new roles in the life of an
individual are also phases of instability of self-identity that can result in changes of selfdescription.
In such phases, people enter or leave social groups that have certain collective
identities and have to reposition their personal identities. They might enter new groups
where they are confronted with new collective identities that enable and constrain their
personal identities and that are influenced by actions and communications based on their
personal identities. Individuals, to a certain extent, identify with the identity of the social
groups in which they act or of which they are part. Individual identity is a positioning of
a human being towards all group identities with which she or he is confronted. Group
identities emerge from continuous communication processes, which individuals enter
with their personal identities, and they enable and constrain personal identities that
again influence group identities, and so on. Hence, identity is a self-referential process
that permanently connects an individual and a collective level.
Some recent contributors to the literature have expressed serious doubts about
whether identity and identification matter as much as social science appears to think
they do. Their scepticism has some justification, and is a useful reminder that we should
not take identity for granted. First, and most fundamentally, there are doubts about
whether identity, in itself, actually causes behaviour. Martin (1995: 5), for example,
has insisted that “identity”, despite its high profile in accounts of recent conflicts,
such as in the Balkans, “fails to provide an explanation … [for] why actors are making
certain utterances or why certain events are happening”. This was a response to claims
that explicitly connected identity to actions, a response to assertions that, under the
circumstances, the people concerned could not have done otherwise (and were, hence,
blameless). Recently Malešević (2002: 62) has also put forward arguments broadly
similar to Martin’s. In order to begin thinking about this issue, we must decide what
we mean by “identity”. As a very basic starting point, identity is the human capacity –
rooted in language – to know “who’s who” (and hence “what’s what”). This involves us
knowing who we are, knowing who others are, them knowing who we are, us knowing
who they think we are, and so on: a multidimensional classification or mapping of the
human world and our places in it, as individuals and as members of collectivities. It is a
process – identification – not a “thing”. It is not something that one can have, or not; it
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