Identity Politics

Abstract

This review presents an overview of research on identity politics. First, I distinguish between various approaches to defining identity politics and the challenges presented by each approach. In the process, I show that these approaches reflect competing theoretical understandings of the relationship between experience, culture, identity, politics, and power. These debates raise theoretical issues that I address in the second section, including (a) how to understand the relationship between personal experience and political stance, (b) why status identities are understood and/or portrayed as essentialist or socially constructed, (c) the strategic dilemmas activists face when the identities around which a movement is organized are also the basis for oppression, (d) when to attribute certain movement outcomes to status identities, and (e) how to link collective action to specific notions of power to help explain the cultural and political goals at which identity politics is aimed. I conclude by recommending some promising avenues for future research.

Narrative, Identity, and the Politics of Exclusion: Social Change and the Gay and Lesbian Life Course

“…They avoid the dangers of narrative contamination by repositioning their stories from the shadows of subordination to a place of positively affirmed identity. This shift, which was common to other identity-based political movements of the twentieth century (Bernstein 2005), represents a reclamation of stigma from a place of discreditability (Goffman 1963) to legitimate "normality" (Cohler and Hammack 2007).…”

Property rights and landscape planning in the intermountain west: The Teton Valley case

“…The growing prevalence of identity politics (Bernstein, 2005) may partially explain the self subjugation of natural property rights advocates. Citizens immersed in the identity politics associated with perceived property rights injustices failed to challenge the social construction of property rights.…”

“…This cultural divide is particularly acute in the intermountain west, home of the wise use movement (Echeverria and Eby, 1995;Mertig et al, 2002). Cultural divisions created by divergent conceptions of property rights create fertile ground for expansion of identity politics (Bernstein, 2005). Identity politics entail political activity of a social group that has united around a common perceived social injustice.…”

Análise das relações interpessoais na área de pesquisa e desenvolvimento de uma indústria familiar

“…Esta estrutura, no entanto, é considerada relativa e temporária, em virtude da possibilidade de mudança de conduta, pela iniciativa do próprio indivíduo. Tanto a estrutura organizacional (formal) como a individual é observável e, portanto, pública, diferente da estrutura privada que representa a maneira pela qual cada indivíduo percebe e interpreta o grupo do qual faz parte (Souza, 1978, Clegg, 1996, Lakomski, 2001, Bernstein, 2005. Vaughn (1995), Strati (1998) e Daft e Weick (2005) estudaram o interpretativismo simbólico organizacional a partir da perspectiva sociológica, que permite aos pesquisadores compreender como uma determinada organização social é percebida, vivenciada, imaginada e dirigida sob o ponto de vista de seus integrantes.…”