Andreas Glaeser
© Andreas Glaeser, 2009-2010
The concept of identity (much like that of culture) has so much written about it, that its meaning seems to disappear within a Babylonian confusion of tongues. Nevertheless, I take identity to be a necessary concept for social science research as much as for everyday life. Here is why. I take the word identity to refer to understandings of a particular person, either by other persons or by him or herself. By “understanding of a person” I mean a discursive, emotive or kinesthetic differentiation and integration of that person with and in the world. Identities tell people what to make of a person, thus orienting them towards that person. Precisely because they orient us, identities matter to us as they enable us to act.
It is important not to reify identities (in practice or research). People are always in becoming even if they try very hard merely to be. This means that identities have to be understood processually; in other words we need to understand identity in formation. In Divided in Unity: Identity, Germany, and the Berlin Police (click HERE for reference and sample chapters) I have developed a theory which traces the development of identities through individual acts of identification. Identifications are links between a particular person and the world at large. I do not only identify myself by flashing a passport (as a citizen of a country entitled to certain rights), but also by crying out “I love Niki de Saint Phalle’s sculptures.” In Divided in Unity I show how east German and west German police officers construct their identities in opposition to each other through identifications with particular places in Berlin’s cityscape, with memories of events, with states and political institutions, with work habits and leisure activities. I argue in the conclusions to the book that these identifications congeal into identities only to the degree that they are recognized by others.
In Political Epistemics: The Secret Police, the Opposition and the End of East German Socialism I have further developed this line of work (click HERE for reference and sample chapters). Not only have I integrated the theory of identity formation processes more generally into a sociology of knowledge, but I have also developed the tools to pay much greater attention to the emotive and kinesthetic understandings, as well as to the fact that what solidifies identifications is not only the recognition afforded by others, but also corroboration of identifications in action, and their resonance with other kinds of understandings.
It is important not to reify identities (in practice or research). People are always in becoming even if they try very hard merely to be. This means that identities have to be understood processually; in other words we need to understand identity in formation. In Divided in Unity: Identity, Germany, and the Berlin Police (click HERE for reference and sample chapters) I have developed a theory which traces the development of identities through individual acts of identification. Identifications are links between a particular person and the world at large. I do not only identify myself by flashing a passport (as a citizen of a country entitled to certain rights), but also by crying out “I love Niki de Saint Phalle’s sculptures.” In Divided in Unity I show how east German and west German police officers construct their identities in opposition to each other through identifications with particular places in Berlin’s cityscape, with memories of events, with states and political institutions, with work habits and leisure activities. I argue in the conclusions to the book that these identifications congeal into identities only to the degree that they are recognized by others.
In Political Epistemics: The Secret Police, the Opposition and the End of East German Socialism I have further developed this line of work (click HERE for reference and sample chapters). Not only have I integrated the theory of identity formation processes more generally into a sociology of knowledge, but I have also developed the tools to pay much greater attention to the emotive and kinesthetic understandings, as well as to the fact that what solidifies identifications is not only the recognition afforded by others, but also corroboration of identifications in action, and their resonance with other kinds of understandings.
That’s me, self-consciously watching myself in the reflection of another’s skull which thanks to Niki de Saint Phalle I could enter for once without the usual tools.