6/9 What is Identity?

In their article, Brubaker and Cooper dissect the term "identity" as it is often used in academia and in politics. The authors allege that identity is too broad of a term to be used the way it is currently used, and that the multiple competing meanings of identity warrant the use of alternative and more specific terms. The article outlines multiple dimensions of identity: as categorical or relational identification, as an element of self-understanding, and as a means for connectedness and commonality within groups. Several real-world examples are presented that engage with the concept of identity and reveal its complicated nature, and the article concludes with a restatement of the idea that the term "identity" is not nuanced enough in its modern use. 

Identity is the way that a person relates themselves to other people and to society. This definition of identity accommodates group affiliations as well as personal identifications that aren't necessarily easy to group. While identifiers like citizenship, ethnicity, and sex at birth are fairly easy to classify in most cases, identity in general is a much more fluid and ever-changing concept. I believe that identity is developed by lived experience. This accommodates for chosen self-identification as well as the effects of external forces. Brubaker and Cooper seem to say (especially in their discussions of real-world examples) that identity in general is easier understood as a constructivist concept than as a primordialist one, and I agree with that sentiment. Your identity is the product of everything you have seen, heard, and felt. For this reason, I'm inclined to believe that while certain elements of identity can be grouped, that everyone's identity is unique in some way. 

In terms of political science, identity plays a major role in how people behave, but it may affect people in different ways. Some people may identify with a certain organization and that affiliation alone, that aspect of their identity, completely governs their political engagement. In Michigan, for example, there has historically been a large subset of union members who vote Democrat because the union says to vote democrat. Even though many members of the union may be conservative in their own beliefs, their affiliation with the union, that aspect of their identity, is strong enough to govern their political behavior in spite of their own beliefs. On the other hand, some people have political identities that constantly evolve and change the way that those people participate in politics; in the "election Twitter" world, the infamous Obama-Trump voters come to mind (a group of unknown size, but possibly including as many as several million Americans who voted for President Obama in 2008 and/or 2012 and then for President Trump in 2016). These voters bucked party and partisanship, two of the most salient identifiers in American politics. Identity effects all politics, but not in the same way. Studying and dissecting how identity effects political participation is worthwhile. 

I do appreciate the sentiment that the term "identity" is perhaps used too broadly in the modern discourse. With that said, I remain deeply skeptical of articles like these, which seem to be so lengthy that they water down their few otherwise salient points. I am also skeptical of the idea that identity as a term, though perhaps overused, is simply too broad to be used effectively. It is an accessible term, one that most people have some understanding of, even if that understanding is not easy to put into words. I think the tripartite breakdown of identity laid out in the Brubaker and Cooper piece has legs, and I think the distinctions they make are useful for academic writing. The problem I have is that the distinctions (like the way Brubaker and Cooper elaborate on the concept of "self-understanding) contain a lot of academic jargon that make them really difficult to understand and apply in a cogent manner.