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Beyond "identity"
ROGERSBRUBAKERand FREDERICKCOOPER
University of California, Los Angeles; University of Michigan
2. Understood as a specificallycollectivephenomenon,"identity"de-
notes a fundamentaland consequentialsameness among members
of a group or category.This may be understood objectively(as a
sameness "in itself") or subjectively(as an experienced, felt, or
perceivedsameness).This samenessis expectedto manifestitself in
solidarity,in shared dispositions or consciousness, or in collective
action. This usage is found especially in the literatureon social
movements;36on gender;37and on race, ethnicity, and national-
ism.38In this usage, the line between "identity"as a category of
analysisand as a categoryof practiceis often blurred.
We are not claiming that the strong and weak versions sketchedhere
jointly exhaust the possible meanings and uses of "identity."Nor are
we claiming that sophisticatedconstructivisttheorists have not done
interestingand important work using "soft"understandingsof iden-
tity.We argue, however,that what is interestingand importantin this
work often does not depend on the use of "identity"as an analytical
category.Considerthreeexamples.
In other words
The modern state has been one of the most important agents of
identification and categorization in this latter sense. In culturalist
extensions of the Weberian sociology of the state, notably those
influencedby Bourdieuand Foucault,the state monopolizes, or seeks
to monopolize, not only legitimate physical force but also legitimate
symbolic force, as Bourdieuputs it. This includes the power to name,
to identify,to categorize,to state what is what and who is who.Thereis
a burgeoning sociological and historical literatureon such subjects.
Some scholars have looked at "identification"quite literally: as the
attachmentof definitivemarkersto an individualvia passport, finger-
print, photograph,and signature,and the amassingof such identifying
documentsin state repositories.When, why,and with what limitations
such systemshavebeen developedturnsout to be no simpleproblem.61
Other scholars emphasize the modern state's efforts to inscribe its
subjectsonto a classificatorygrid: to identifyand categorizepeople in
relation to gender, religion, property-ownership,ethnicity, literacy,
criminality,or sanity.Censuses apportionpeople across these catego-
ries, and institutions- from schools to prisons - sort out individualsin
relation to them. To Foucauldiansin particular,these individualizing
and aggregatingmodes of identificationand classificationare at the
core of what defines"governmentality" in a modern state.62
16
I I I I
*-A *=A =A *=A
&= *
M=- =AA B
-f-A-
* Female / \
A Male
=
Marriage
and social location, one that construesthe social world in terms of the
degreeand qualityof connectionamong people ratherthan in termsof
categories,groups,or boundaries.Social location is definedin the first
instance in terms of lineage, consisting of the descendants of one
ancestor reckoned through a socially conventional line: patrilineal,
via males in the case of Nuer, via females or more rarelyvia double
descentsystemsin otherpartsof Africa. Childrenbelong to the lineage
of their fathers,and while relationshipswith the mother'skin are not
ignored,they are not part of the descentsystem.A segmentarylineage
can be diagrammedas in Figure1.
Identity claims and the enduring dilemmas of "race"in the United States
"Amoralphilosophy,"wroteAlisdairMacIntyre,"presupposesa sociol-
ogy";99 the same holds afortiori of political theory. The problem with
much contemporarypolitical theory is that it is built on questionable
sociology - indeed preciselyon the group-centeredrepresentationof
the social world just mentioned.We are not taking the side of "uni-
versality"against "particularity"here. Rather, we are suggestingthat
the identitarianlanguage and groupist social ontology that informs
much contemporarypolitical theory occludes the problematicnature
of "groupness"itself and forecloses other ways of conceptualizing
particularaffiliationsand affinities.
does not contributeto precisionof analysisto use the same words for
the extremesof reificationand fluidity,and everythingin between.
Acknowledgments
Notes
sociologie 36, no. 1 (1995): 72-102; Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-identity.
Self and Society in the Late Modern Age (Cambridge: Polity Press, in association
with Blackwell, Oxford, 1991); Jiirgen Habermas, Staatsbiirgerschaft und rationale
Identitdt: Uberlegungen zur europaischen Zukunft (St. Gallen: Erker, 1991);
David Laitin, Identity in Formation(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998);
Claude Levi-Strauss, editor, L'identite: Seminaire interdisciplinare (Paris: Presses
Universitairesde France,1977);Paul Ricoeur, Oneselfas Another(Chicago:Uni-
versityof ChicagoPress,1992);AmartyaSen,"Goals,Commitment,and Identity,"
Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 2 (Fall 1985): 341-355; Margaret
Somers,"TheNarrativeConstitutionof Identity:A Relationaland NetworkAp-
proach,"Theoryand Society 23 (1994):605-649; CharlesTaylor,"ThePoliticsof
Recognition," in Multiculturalism and "The Politics of Recognition: An Essay",
(Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress, 1992);25-74; CharlesTilly,"Citizenship,
Identity and Social History,"in Tilly, editor, Citizenship,Identity and Social
History(Cambridgeand New York:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1996);Harrison
White, Identity and Control: A Structural Theory of Social Action (Princeton, N.J.:
PrincetonUniversityPress,1992).
18. On experience-nearand experience-distantconcepts- the termsare derivedfrom
Heinz Kohut - see CliffordGeertz,"Fromthe Native'sPoint of View,"in Local
Knowledge(New York: Basic Books, 1983),57. The basic contrast goes back at
least to Durkheim'sRulesof SociologicalMethod,whichcriticizedthe sociological
use of "pre-notions"or lay conceptsthat havebeen "createdby experienceand for
it." Emile Durkheim, The Rules of Sociological Method, trans. S. Solovay and J.
Mueller,ed. G. E. G. Catlin,8th ed. (New York:FreePress,1964),14-46.
19. As LoicWacquantnotes of race,the "continualbarterbetweenfolk and analytical
notions, the uncontrolledconflationof social and sociologicalunderstandingsof
'race"' is "intrinsicto the category. From its inception, the collective fiction
labeled'race'... has alwaysmixed science with common sense and tradedon the
complicity between them" ("For an Analytic of Racial Domination,"Political
Power and Social Theory 11 [1997]: 222-223).
20. On "ethnicidentityentrepreneurs,"see BarbaraLal,"EthnicIdentityEntrepreneurs:
Their Role in Transracialand IntercountryAdoptions,"Asian Pacific Migration
Journal6 (1997):385-413.
21. This argumentis developedfurtherin Rogers Brubaker,NationalismReframed
(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,1996),chapter1.
22. Mara Loveman, "Is 'race' essential? A comment on Bonilla-Silva,"American
Sociological Review,November 1999. See also Wacquant,"For an Analytic of
Racial Domination";Rupert Taylor,"Racial Terminologyand the Question of
'Race' in South Africa,"manuscript,7; and Max Weber,Economyand Society,
ed. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich (New York: BedminsterPress, 1968), 1:
385ff, for a strikinglymodern argumentquestioningthe analyticalutility of the
notions of "race,""ethnicgroup,"and "nation."
23. On "nation"as a "political fiction," see Louis Pinto, "Une fiction politique:
la nation," Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 64 (September 1986): 45-50,
a Bourdieuianappreciationof the studies of nationalism carried out by the
eminent Hungarianhistorian Jen6 Sziics. On race as a "collectivefiction,"see
Wacquant,"For an Analytic of Racial Domination,"222-223. The key work by
Bourdieuin this domain is "L'identiteet la representation:6elmentspour une
reflexion critique sur l'idee de r6gion," Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 35
(November1980),part of which is reprintedin Bourdieu,Languageand Symbolic
40