The Pros Of Socially Construct Identification

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.

What is the obsession with people’s need of identification? People need to understand that we all are different, not everybody can fit into a group. In her article, “Being an Other,” Melissa Algranati gives a personal narrative of her life and her parent 's life and how they faced discrimination and her struggles about being identified as an “other” even though she was an American born jewish and Puerto Rican. Michael Omi’s article “In Living Color: Race and American Culture” reinforces Algranati’s article since in his article he discusses about people ideas about race the stereotypes that they face. They have the same thought that Americans is obsessed with labelling people, they both discuss people’s assumptions of others based on how

In his essay, “Racial Identities”, Kwame Anthony Appiah addresses the topic of racial identification. He describes how and why it’s hard not to identify someone based on their race. Today in the United States, racial identification is quite relevant. People judge and stereotype others based on race. Classifying people based on their looks isn’t bad, it’s the negative attitudes and labels that come with it. Racial identification is hard for most people to avoid, is detrimental due to the bad attitudes people have, negatively affects people’s lifestyles, and divide people.

     Identity is one of the main questions throughout all of our readings, because it is hard for people to accept who they are in society. Accepting their identity as a minority with little if any freedoms

We have different identities based on our cultural, ethnic, racial and religious differences. These identities will affect how we see ourselves since we might have different responsibilities, job duties and backgrounds. In the two literature stories “Shooting an Elephant” and “Everyday Use”, Alice Walker and George Orwell both show how identity is connected to how we see ourselves in the present.

Labels are everywhere. Whether conscious or subconsciously, they are a fundamental part of our lives. We label together foods, clothing, colours and things that are alike. But what happens when we expand this form of “labelling” to split up types of people? When we assume character traits about those who belong to a certain group, this can intensely affect the way many react in life. Those who are judged for their sexual orientation, gender, income, mental problems etc., may eventually begin to conform to a stereotype that they belong to. In turn, this stereotyping may be the reason for certain people to partake in deviance acts.

Within dystopian literature, identity is something that can be seen as an individual’s most core and precious element. Exposed against a scarcity of freedom in self-expression, we can begin to fully appreciate and understand the importance in the role of identity as well as its robustness. The role of identity and its manipulation is often explored within dystopian literature to exemplify weaknesses in human psychology as well as to destroy false images of strength and superiority that we apply to ourselves. In both The Road and

Judith Butler and Kwame Appiah inspect the main cause as to how although we claim to possess autonomy, we’re merely given choices as to what is socially acceptable, which leads to an unbroken cycle of false identifications. Appiah demonstrates how our personalities are largely affected by nurture rather than nature and how each and every person are given a title and expected to live up to those standards. Butler’s claim exemplifies how our bodies are under the influence of others and although we may believe we are different and under a certain category, we are really not entirely different from everyone else. One of our life goals is to be unique, unlike any other and on some socioeconomic level we will allow our choices to be made for us.

Society’s biggest accomplishment is not its ability to construct ideas about people that force them to mold their being into those ideas but rather it is society’s ability to turn the same groups it marginalizes and subjugates into the enforcer of social norms and rules which are enacted to their disadvantage. We wonder how society is able to do this. Well for one, it deters individuals from having the freedom to allow their individuality to flourish and contains them into a position where they are forced to conform to social norms. It does this by associating heavy costs to the transgression of social norms, these costs include losing the safe of one’s socially accepted identity—in terms

It is necessary to consider the position of essentialism in affecting identification. Essentialism stresses on the notion that difference is fundamental. People bond to each other based on the so-called commonalities, such as race, gender, nationality and so on. However, individuals can be devalued and avoided because they belong to certain groups (Young, 1990). Also, people loathe members from their own groups or other oppressed groups through emphasizing on a sense of difference (ibid). Taking the situation of black queer people to examine the idea that ‘I was born black, you choose to be gay.’ First, the notion of born as black expresses that blackness is a fixed or a given identity, which sets a boundary to exclude black queer people from

Whether it be a clothing line of Polo worn by a student or a position in a job, the placement of labels on individuals in society happens instinctively. Without thought, a persona is given to those who work a life seen as less desirable, and a common

Identity in a sociological sense is more than individual genetics or individuality. Self identity is made up by many characteristics including; our personal experiences, beliefs, socio-economic status and other factors. Society plays a huge role in determining identity, although true identity generally isn’t a true reflection of an individual’s self identity. Over the generations there have been

1.) A social construct is the titles that society uses to differentiate between people, places, and things. These social constructs do not actually physically exist. Society perceives something, such as, one should never ask a woman her age, males are stronger than females, race to differentiate between people, and too, the lines that are used to make up a map, and we as society just go along with the norm. Everyone knows that there are no physical lines on the ground that tell you that you have reached another state, we as society just know that we have reached another state. Just as, some people may take race and associate it with social class. Whereas, we as society know that there is no set rule that you cannot ask a woman her age, but we follow the norm and don’t ask a woman her age because society knows that it may be offensive.

Identities are prescriptive representations of every society’s members themselves and of their relationship to each other. The “limits of identification”, thus divide social prescription of identity into two categories, prescriptive accounts of members themselves which is their personal identities, and behavioral prescriptions for the proper enactment of these identities which is society’s norms or behavioral norms that require individual’s to be identified and act in certain ways. In the three passages, “Selections from reading Lolita in Tehran,” by Azar Nafisi, “On Becoming an Arab,” by Leila Ahmed; “Selections from Losing Matt Sheppard,” by Beth Loffreda, the “limits of identification” are introduced based on gender, race, and sexuality as main factors used to classify the characters in the readings and pose their identity which led to prejudice, discrimination, and limit their lives based on general stereotypes. “Limits of identification,” therefore are general ideas used to distinguish individuals who are different in some ways from the rest of society, because they belong to a certain gender, race, or act in certain ways that is different from the set of social norms. According to Ahmed, Nafisi, and Matt’s life experience, hence, the potential “limits of identification”, are their societies’ norms and beliefs that are reinforced on them. These norms and beliefs allow every society and every individual to marginalize these characters based

This doesn’t mean neither actual inequality ceased to play a role in social reproduction, nor social positions didn’t define people’s lives, but defined the conceptual lenses through which modern individual has been defined.