Chameleon And Identity Essay

Stuart Hall defines identity as an ‘already accomplished fact, which the new cultural practices then represent’. We should think instead of ‘identity as a ‘production’ which is never complete, always in process, and always constituted within, not outside, representation’ (Hall 1994 p.392). An individual’s sense of belonging to a particular group, thinking, feelings and behaviour can also be referred to as identity. One’s cultural image can construct identity; such features as hair, skin tone and height. History shapes our identity.

Though it does not come up in everyday thought, cultural identity is an idea that all humans possess. Abridged, cultural identity can be simply explained as the sharing of a similar culture by people of various ethnicities. However, cultural identity is more complex than that, defined by an individual’s values, beliefs, and ideas of moral behavior influenced by their culture. Furthermore, cultural identity is ever changing from individual to individual. This means that although two individuals may be of the same ethnicity, differences in circumstances may cause variations between the individuals’ personal beliefs. As a result of interracial interactions, multiculturalism has grown during the twenty-first century.

Imagined community is referred to the idea that a nations language, race and religion have been imaged by people who perceive themselves part of a specific nation. It is the idea that we ourselves create. In the text Whose Imagined community? By Partha Chatterjee, she explains how we have shaped this idea of imagined community and how it has been influenced by nationalism. The roots of nationalism has often been associated with a country who has political power.

Identity as the “condition or character as to who a person or what a thing is; the qualities, beliefs, etc., that distinguish or identify a person or thing” (Dictionary.com). This could refer to name, gender, sexual orientation, one’s profession, race, ethnicity, and the list stretches beyond. Is it birth, by choice, or by evolution of events? In Gloria Anzaldua’s “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Teach Yourself Italian”, and Zadie Smith’s “Speaking in Tongues”, each author writes about their experiences with languages and all have lived through different events which has led them to their definitions of identity. What they all have in common is that they define identity not as something defined by birth, by determined by

In order to be aware of Gregor’s transformation in The Metamorphosis, Lacan’s theory of understanding reality, supports the idea of identity. Lacan realizes through the mirror stage that it is one thing to see a reflection of oneself, though, it is more complex than this, since a reflection of someone is just an image, one’s identity is more than we can see (Lacan 72). In other words, one must alienate themselves from others to compare and reach self-recognition. According to Kafka’s story, Gregor has felt isolated from the start, and because he travels for his job he barley makes any social interaction, hence his basis for relationships relies in his family unit where his identity is based on false recognition. But before Gregor’s metamorphosis, he was seen as something

There are millions of words across the globe that are used to describe people and uncover their identity, but what is identity? How can you begin to describe something that varies so greatly from one human being to another? Can you create a universal meaning for a word describing human concepts that people often fail to define for themselves? Of course there isn't one definition to define such a word. It is an intricate aspect of human nature, and it has a definition just as complex.

A person’s identity may be determined by him/her family background and this is proven evident in the essay “Private and Public Language” by Rodriguez. We live in a world in which identities are determined prematurely without hesitation. This means that even without getting to know an individuals personality the first thing that is done instead is determining identities based on your physical state, family, or family background. As a culture we live in a diverse environment in which the majority of people come from a different place, and as a result many are identified differently depending on where he/she and their family are from. Today’s culture is more diverse than ever, and more and more people are migrating to different countries and settling so I feel like it

The development of personal identity and a sense of place are concepts that are influenced by abstract ideology such as nationalism, fictitious history, and personal meaning. Anderson talks about the nature of how nationalism shapes a person and a community in his book, Imagined Communities. According to my first blog entry, Anderson defines a nation as an “imagined political community—and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.” He claims that its imaginary aspect is due to the fact that individuals of a nation will never meet the rest of the nation. I state how, “This limited circumstance only allows for a subjective interpretation of a community that is not based on factual knowledge.” It is intriguing how a concept that can extensively shape the individual is an abstract illusion of a community. It illustrates how although the development of an individual may be seen as a private, even insignificant affair—it is influenced by a number of variables that exist in society. One could argue that the development of the individual is more public than private, and could shape and influence the development of a society as well as vice versa.

Identity as a crisis is seen through a broad view of world literature, through books read this term, and through specific quotes from the books. Throughout the texts we have read this term, identity

Communities throughout history have always sought to define who they are as a collective whole. Over the course of time, it was this that helped bind nations together through a collective sense of national identity and belonging. Although there are some set definitions that people use to define who collectively are, such as their own language and national history, this is not the only explanation of how groups of people have conceived who they are. In reality, communities have primarily conceived who they are by comparing themselves to an ‘other’ who they are not. As the historian Peter Sahlins put it, national identity over the course of time has been constructed “by the social or territorial boundaries drawn to distinguish the collective

In most case, identity is shaped by culture. Since culture is a set of ideals life practices, routines and attitudes set up by a certain community hence culture plays a major role in shaping the identity of an individual. An individual’s character and attributes can be because of their background. This is due to the set up that one has grown up (Dumas 19). People tend to learn more about their culture, and as they grow up it becomes part of them. They embrace the culture’s beliefs and tend to do things following the set routines. The aspect of following the set routine and beliefs play a significant part in shaping the identity of an individual.

Community is people who not just share the same location but also share other common characteristics, such as, common lifestyles, values, social interaction and a common sense of identity (Oxford Reference: A Dictionary of Sociology, 2015). The traditional sociological definition of identity is defined by the Oxford Dictionary of Sociology (Oxford Reference: A Dictionary of Sociology, 2015) as being strongly linked to symbolic interactionism and is a result of pragmatic theory of the self. Theorists William James and George Herbert Mead both perceived identity as a process whereby individuals through communication and language could reflect on their self and on the social world. The process of identity was effectively a process of situating one’s self within socially constructed categories. Modern sociology doesn’t provide a clear definition of identity, but

Cultural identity is a part of the psychological self-concept that expresses an individual or group’s worldview and perceived cultural affiliations. The first step in finding a societal fit is to establish a cultural identity; this can be on an individual level and group level. Who am I? And where do I belong? These questions start to form in the human mind from an early age; it drives humans to explore their worldviews and how and where they fit in the world. Rosenfeld (1971) argued it is a deep-seated primal process that has ensured our continual survival. By finding others that think and act similarly we are offered some protection (Erickson, as cited in Carducci 2015). Erickson (as cited in Carducci, 2015) and Maslow (as cited in Mcleod 2007) argued that the need to belong is a basic building block of human development. Whatever the reason, the consensus is that humans have an intrinsic need to find a like-minded cultural group to belong to; this chosen affiliation is their cultural identity. A person may identify with more than one cultural

The nation has been described by Benedict Anderson as an "imagined community" and by Paul James as an "abstract community". It is an imagined community in the sense that the material conditions exist for imagining extended and shared connections. It is an abstract community in the sense that it is objectively impersonal, even if each individual in the nation experiences him or herself as subjectively part of an embodied unity with others.

The key theoretical term for this study is cultural identity. The subject of identity – and