OUGD501 - CoP Identity Seminar

Context of Practice Identity Seminar

Essentialism

Essentialism has a tendency to identify people's identities, IE your personality is born into you.

Identity and 'the other' in visual representation

• The creation of identities
• The concepts of otherness

Identity Creation - What makes you, you?

• Skills
• Sense of humour
• Interests
• Clothes
• Education
• Fears
• Occupation
• Where you live and your accent
• Size
• Social Network used
• Gender
• Social skills
• DNA
• Religion and beliefs
• Sexual orientation
• Physical attributes

How do you express your identity?

• Tattoos and piercings
• Cosmetics - makeup, hair dye etc
• Liberation of sexuality
• Clothes
• Creative skills
• Where you CHOOSE to live
• Eating habits - (vegetarian/ vegan etc)
• Recreation
• Lifestyle choices - going to the gym, recreational activities etc
• Objects owned

Circuit of culture

Identity formation by Jaques Lacan

Jaques Lacan's theory of the 'Hommelette' implies that you are born a selfless, unaware being. You are an extension of your parents and are a clumsy non-being. It's not until the 'mirror stage' (not to be necessarily taken literally) where you see yourself being a separate thing from your parents that you take yourself more seriously and start having opinions and interests. But this is when the start of the conflict between who we are and who we want to be begins.
It's at this moment where you get an illusion of wholeness - where you recognise all your achievements and are content and pleased that you are in fact, a whole being. In his theory, it's this feeling we then try to achieve again our whole lives by receiving views from others. Our own subjectivity is fragile.

The problem with this is that this state relies on the assumption of opposition and radical otherness. In the same way we assure ourselves that our individuality is confirmed by other people's unity.

This however does shore up unstable identities through the illusion of unity - a good example of this is football hooliganism. The idea that the other team is rubbish assures them that their team is better than the actual fact that their team is successful in their own right.

This goes for anything such as belief systems, values, fashion and trends.

Study task 3 that follows from this session is here.