Identity: Sociological Perspectives

Instead of seeing identity as something located ‘within’ the person – a property of the person, we might say – I consider it as something produced through social relations.

Mead (1934) proposes a distinction between two dynamic aspects of the self: the ‘me’ who moves through the social world, existing in complex social relations (Mead uses the analogy of play), and the ‘I’ whose exact definition proves difficult, but which represents a post hoc reflection on the actions, perceptions and understandings of the ‘me’.

and reflexive sense that people have of who they are.

attempts to understand identity as process, as something achieved rather than something innate, as done rather than ‘owned’.

both its public manifestations – which might be called ‘roles’ or identity categories

‘one’s humanity is simultaneously shared and singular’ (Jackson, 2002: 142).

identity itself is a social and collective process and not, as Western traditions would

My sense of myself, others’ perceptions of me, my reactions to others’ perceptions, the social categories that attach themselves to me and to which I attach myself – all may be referred to as ‘identity’,

and the more personal, ambivalent, reflective