Cultural Identity
Essentialism
Fragmented Identities
Difference and Identity
Anti-essentialism
Social categories reflect essential “underlying” identities
Patriarchal or colonialist construction
Categorization of e.g. gender, sex, race, nation, etc.
= Productions of culture in specific times and places
Meaning making & identities through cultural constructions
Categories DO change their meanings
NO pre-given personality or self
Subject = multiple & fragmented
= Contingent on context
1) Negatively as the exclusion and marginalization of those who are defined as ‘Other’ or as outsiders
2) Can be celebrated as a source of diversity, heterogeneity, and hybridity
Markers: skin color, hair, age, language, etc.
Hybridity & difference
Cultural mixing & distant influencers; new identities
Blurs established collective identities
Overcomes binary logic
Classificatory Systems
Similarity and difference
Establishing “otherness”
Inclusion & exclusion
Entail power relations
They are not fixed