Page 91 - Critical and Cultural Theory

SOCIAL IDENTITIES
identities for its subjects. By effacing the constructedness of identi-
ties and images, humanism and realism peddle an ideological
agenda based on the notion that reality is unchanging: in denying
that identities and images are 'made', they aim at disallowing the
possibility of their being 'unmade' (challenged, disrupted). Conver-
sely, embracing the idea that both personal and collective identi-
ties are constructs means accepting their openness to dislocation
and change. Apparently stable and immutable identities are
actually ephemeral assemblages designed to embody ideologically
contingent meanings, beliefs and systems of values.
Chapter 1, 'Ideology', examines various applications of this
term in the context of political philosophy. Chapter 2, 'Subjectiv-
ity', explores changing approaches to the idea of identity with a
focus on psychoanalytic theory and on the discursive production
of the subject. In Chapter 3, 'The Body', the construction of social
identities is discussed with reference to the symbolic import of the
organism. Chapter 4, 'Gender and Sexuality', investigates the
constitution of gendered and sexual identities in relation to
feminist theories and their collusion with issues of class and ethni-
city. Chapter 5, 'The Other', focuses on the construction of racial
and sexual identities through binary oppositions (e.g. self versus
non-self) and on postcolonial theories. In Chapter 6, The Gaze',
identity is assessed as a function of seeing and of the power rela-
tions associated with this act.

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