Reviews for Social Theory and the Politics of Identity

The average rating for Social Theory and the Politics of Identity based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-03-22 00:00:00 Thomas Baker Edited collection. Ch 1 - Craig Calhoun's introductory chapter - *** Interesting introduction that shapes the contradictions of the volume as a whole. Leaves unquestioned the framework of recognition which I believe is borrowed and vulgarised somewhat from Nancy Fraser among others (Patricia Hill Collins seems to be an often bandied-about name). Postulates that identities are socially constructed but does not interrogate what this means for identity claims as politics. Shows that social constructionism is 'just as determinist as essentialism' but seems to leave the question open on the alternative to either. Ch 2 - Somers and Gibson's "Narrative and Social Identity" - * Bold but ultimately entirely flawed argument in support of the new 'narrative' models that attempt to go beyond the sociology of action. It is claimed that classical modernity is a 'metanarrative' that has excluded the 'epistemological Other' - a by-now obvious claim. It is also claimed that this and the sociology of action (a la Weber and followers) constitutes modern social science and succumbs to unstated flaws of naturalism and the problem that society is too complex. It is then advanced that 'conceptual narrativity' and the 'new ontology of narrative studies' can save us from the clutches of evil master narratives. Narrative models of social science sound suspiciously like autoethnography. Overall a bad chapter. Ch 3 - Charles Lemert's "Dark Thoughts of the Self" - * Essentially tries to argue that thinkers who make claims that are unfortunately beset by either essentialism or tribalism, are in fact not essentialist or tribalist because they also make claims to the opposite. Unfortunately Lemert does not notice the contradiction in fact invalidates the entire premise. I thought the case studies were interesting until the ramblings on about Erving Goffman. Ch 4 - Norbert Wiley's "The Politics of Identity in American History" - ** Uses mainly semiotics and language theories - little on actual history - to demonstrate movements in the politics of identity. Such an approach is fine but a lot is left unexplained. What exactly occurred in the 'revolutionary period'? How did the American pragmatists 'save' US democracy? What is not interrogated is, as argued by Kenan Malik, the cultural relativism of the American pragmatists which has managed to fuel what Etienne Balibar calls the 'neo-racism', or race being translated in increasingly 'cultural' terms. A lot of wacky assertions are made such as this idea that Foucault and Derrida distrusted the 'self' and insisted on its 'decentring' because they belonged to marginalised groups. Excuse me? Frantz Fanon was a Algerian black man and one of the world's most interesting - and provocative - Marxist humanists (Foucault is a notorious relativist and anti-humanist). Ch 5 - Todd Gitlin's "The Fragmentation of the Idea of the Left" - ***** Could have been written by me. Gitlin would be horrified if he saw what kind of postmodern psychobabble students have been leveling at the curriculum to try to make it less 'Eurocentric' or whatever. The legacy of Marxism is its undying commitment to universalism - that humans are essentially their labour. This is in spite of every last charlatan who attempts to say that Marx or Engels is a sexist, racist or whatever and for that (false) reason Marxism should be rejected. Consequently the attempts of the charlatans to replace universalism with a different abiding principle of unity have dramatically failed. This includes the prominent term 'intersectionality' which despite popular opinion is not a theory of universality because it entirely lacks a universal referent. All that is there is interlocking 'oppressions' which unify no one because each individual's place on the intersectional grid is different. Many well-intentioned people, who have fatalistically accepted the failure of social movements (and continue not to see the wood for the trees), have retreated to the lofty fantasies of anarchist self-organisation, tricking themselves into thinking they are making any substantive political impact. What happened in the switch in New Left tactics to argue for recognition and self-organise along lines of identity 'standpoints' was the eventual 'caucusing' of the Left. We now do not belong to a Left, but a particular group within it, which is based NOT on what we believe but who we supposedly 'are.' The politics of ideology has been replaced by a vulgar standpoint theory that ironically mirrors the structure of racist, colonial, misogynist and essentialist stereotype. Ch 6 - Stephen Mennell's "The Formation of We-I Images: A Process Theory" - **** If identity is *actually* socially constructed, how does this work? A good attempt - particularly on the issue of Slavic nationalism - to try to locate this in historical processes - i.e. to explain how group differences are actually formed socially. Would like to see what my friends the critical realists would say about this kind of approach. It meshes 'microsociology' and 'macrosociology' quite well. I applaud the author for his tight analysis of Norbert Elias, as I find him incredibly dry. Ch 7 - Eli Zaretsky's "Identity Theory, Identity Politics" - *** Zaretsky helps to re-situate 'identity politics' in terms of the dominations that do appear in society and how to confront this via institutional critique. A distinction is made between separatist and polity-based identity movements (the former are, thankfully, dismissed in their entirety). Despite this bold essay, it still seems behind its time and the relationship of the supported movements to Marxism (included in the subtitle) is barely/not discussed. To be honest I expected better. Ch 8 - Manthia Diawara's "Malcolm X and the Black Public Sphere" - *** Theoretically this is the worst chapter in the book due to the black nationalist-endorsing 'culturalist' approach that is used (the author views Malcolm X's conversion to the Nation of Islam as an entirely positive thing. I mean, come on!!!!). But I was genuinely interested in the historical information on Malcolm X's thought trajectories. Malcolm X has always stunned me as a very torn, complex, and quite ambivalent person. So I suppose for sheer joy of reading it earns a few points, lucky! Ch 9 - Loic Wacquant's "The New Urban Color Line" - ***** This is how ethnography is meant to be done. Great 'mixed methods' essay. Evocatively describes examples of black ghettoisation in America (which Wacquant says has lost its 'infrastructural' and 'communal' qualities and is now 'split' between rapidly disintegrating urban cores and metro outskirts of primarily jobless former industrial workers and such) and proceeds to ascertain key politico-economic moves that created them: disinvestment, gentrification/racial divisions in housing provision, retrenchment of the welfare state, etc. The breakdown of bonds of solidarity found in the formerly 'communal' ghettos has led to explosions in alienated behaviour and violence as well as political marginalisation and abandonment. Ch 10 - Thomas Scheff's "Theory of Ethnic Nationalism" - *** Scheff is an interesting character who specialises in the 'sociology of emotions' which I took a course on in my last year as an undergraduate sociology student. Scheff wants to extend the model of Benedict Anderson's 'imagined communities' to include the realm of feelings. Pride and shame in particular are discussed, primarily through psychoanalytic conceits such as Alfred Adler's 'inferiority complex'. From interviews he conducted relating to the Rodney King episode and students' beliefs about them, he concluded that shame and pride works in feedback loops that are of lesser force if a student is prepared to acknowledge them - highly psychoanalytic in character, then. Pride is a relation of solidarity while shame alienates or 'engulfs' the person involved. Scheff stresses the theory is conceptually incomplete. Ch 11 - Calhoun's "Nationalism and Civil Society" - ** Not a lot to admire about this truism-filled piece. Overall: the collection gets 2 stars. I recommend Wacquant's own books and Gitlin's "The Twilight of Common Dreams" over this.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-07-02 00:00:00 Philip Dolaway A useful guide to Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic theories. In addition to discussing the categories of the Imaginary, the Symbolic and the Real, and the relation of metonymy and metaphor to desire and the symptom, Bowie employs Lacan's theories to determine what time it is in the unconscious'something that I have not seen other commentators attempt in their works on Lacanian thought.