Who are “we”? Who am “I”? Why is the “Other” constructed as other, and on what grounds? Do we have a single, stable identity, or multiple, situational ones? And, most importantly, is the category of “identity” still analytically useful in the age of “superdiversity,” a term coined by sociologist Steven Vertovec? This course introduces anthropological and social theory approaches to identity and subjectivity, focusing on how identities are constructed, conceptualized, debated, employed, and mobilized in different social, cultural, and political contexts. Instead of taking identity as a self-evident category, the course approaches “identity” as a problem for analysis, asking what the concept of identity allows us to understand, what it may obscure, and with what implications.
- Teacher: Timea Crofony