KOIIA/The Complexity of Identity

KOIIA 2, 7,5 hp vt -09 Örebro University Catarina Schmidt

The Complexity of Identity
This paper discusses the conditions for identity; what it is, how it is created and developed. I will argue that there is a strong connection between identity and learning and also claim that there is crucial link between confidence in the written language and identity development.

In the Swedish National Encyclopedia the word identity is defined as ”self image, awareness of oneself as a unique individual” and as “individuals or groups own identification of belonging to a certain culture, ethnical group or nation” (www.ne.se). Consequently dentity is about who I am, my sense of belonging to other groups, my relations, how I think of myself and how others understand me. We do not always reflect upon the term identity – it can be difficult to describe your own identity and even more difficult to take someone else’s perspective and be able to understand the conditions which creates another person’s identity.”My identity is”, writes Feinberg (1998),”as common to me as it may be uncommon to you” (p. 3). Our thoughts, feelings and ideas are inside us while the surrounding world is outside us, we can here talk about an inner and an outer world. Wenger (1998) means that identity ”narrows the focus onto the person, but from a social perspective” (s. 145). The concept of identity focuses the individual, the self and the subject. At the same time every individual needs the interaction with others to develop identity. To become a subject, to become someone, can therefore be seen as a double process (Nordin-Hultman, 2004). We construct our own identity at the same time as we are constructed. What does this really mean; how and on what conditions does identity develop? What does identity mean for the conditions of learning and, more specifically, for the credence and confidence in the written language?

CONDITIONS FOR IDENTITY

Riley (2007) stresses that ”the ability to establish intersubjectivity, to enter into social and meaningfull contact with another, is a necessary condition for the formation of identity” (p. 33). Many researchers stress the fact that identity is a product of social interaction (Wenger, 1998; Caldas-Coulthard & Iedema, 2008; Riley, 2007; ) It is the meeting between the subjects that is necessary for the creation of identity. Caldas-Coulthard & Iedema (2008) explain the notion of identity like representations of personal experiences and feelings that express themselves through organized action. Spoken or signed interaction can be seen as the very foundation of identity construction. To be able to express what simultaneously establishes our identity, we need a language. In a wider sense identity is all we say, express, gesture, wear and possess. The creation of identity commute, according to Lemke (2008) and Wenger (1998), between the individual’s and the minor group’s activities within the major institutional contexts. Wenger (1998) argues that it is not either an individual, nor an institutional or a social perspective. Instead we meet, he argues, them all three together at the same time dialogically “with a human face” (Ibid., p. 145). When we meet institutions we also meet its people, artifacts, discourses, practices and contexts (Lemke, 2008).

Identity craves space and room in order to be created and developed over and over again. ”A society worth living in must make room for people to craft identities”, accentuates Wikan (2002, p. 74). Bhabha (1994) gives us the vision of ”a third space for enunciation (p. 53)” as a possible room where we can talk about ourselves and the other without putting the former aside as less worthy. Except this room with mutual respect for each other where interaction is possible through language we need a variety and a richness of words in order to express our identities. Lemke (2008) refers to Paulo Freire who ”asks us to try to speak an authentic word, to try to name ourselves outside the realm of names given to us by social institutions and the interest of power” (p. 39). Where ever interaction takes place it is put against categories like age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion and class. Those social categories, which identity can be investigated from, are also them pluralistic and changeable (Lemke, 2008; Eriksson-Zetterquist & Styhre, 2007; Feinberg, 1998 .) Eriksson-Zetterquist & Styhre (2007) give us the picture of a human as an aggregate of different identities, coexisting without being syncronised referring to Rosa Baraidotti (2006) :

It is absolutely the case that one is not a Muslim on Tuesday and a European on Wednesday, a woman on Monday, black on Sunday and lesbian on Thursday afternoon. These variables coexist in time. They also intersect, coincide or clash; they are seldom synchronized. (p. 13)

The many possibilities to interaction and language in order to ”name ourselves” are sources to both the individual and the collective identity. The construction of identity is always negotiating with different social categories of society, which can result in both restrictions as well as a legitimizations of the construction of identity.

LEGITIMISATION OF IDENTITY

Identity needs, as earlier mentioned, space. What is then happening when this space is limited, decreased or not existing? Eriksson-Zetterquist & Styhre (2007) claim that ”even if postmodern identity theories describe human identity as flowing and fragmental they will in unclear ways be stabilized into different social categorizations (p. 32). If, for example, only conflicts between gender is focused it can mean a stabilization of only this category which will make us disregard from other kind of oppressions. One such example is, mean de los Reys et.al (2005) immigrated women experiences and problems. If all women are compared with an idealized Swedish womanhood ethnical limits will be created where the Swedishness will be the norm (Ibid.). But, by taking in to consideration other social categoreis like ethnicity/race, age and social class the picture of immigrant women might be widened and the unclear stabilization around only one category might be painted in more colors and shades. The concept of intersectionality contributes to the possibility to see more social categories and the impact of these at the same time. Eriksson-Zetterquist & Styhre (2007) refer to Lycke (2003) and claim that intersectionality has its background in postmodern theories, feminist theories, postcolonial theories, Afro-American theories, theories about ethnicity, theories about class and queer theory. The authors strongly emphasize the importance of seeing “both ethnicity, color of skin, gender, class, sexuality, religion, age and other categories” (Ibid. p. 10) and their conclusion is that different social categories cannot be separated from each other, instead they state that we have to investigate ”how the different analytical categories clutch to each other and co-vary (p. 13) since they exist within a mutual relation with each other. To each one of these social categories values are connected - values that create social hierarchies.

Postcolonial theoretical tools can show u show social hierarchies are being constructed without reflections and/or awareness from us as individuals within the very context. Colonization is not only about the conquering of land and natural assets, it is also about the ideology that justifies the construction of ”the others”. de los Reyes (2007) means that the ethnical hierarchy, existing within the employment- and resident market of today follows the colonial map. By connecting the colonial project to contemporary diversifying varieties, de los Reyes et.al. (2005) argue that there is a way to make social hierarchies visible. One expression for the ideology of colonization  is the eugenic that was developed and got academically established at the University of Uppsala during the beginning of 1900 in Sweden. These thoughts were, according to the authors (Ibid.), the foundation of what they name culture racism. They explain culture racism as defining the typical Swedish; the seeking after a Swedish identity points to the fact that the classification of the population of today is not built upon racial differences in a biological sense – now the concept of culture dominates the rhetoric. Just like Bhabha (1994) the authors (Ibid.) emphasize that binaries like women/men, labour/capital, immigrants/Swedes are taken for granted. An uncritical use might have the effect that some categories are dominated by another and that social hierarchies will be established. Another example of this is, according to de los Reyes et.al. (2005), single mothers, which they mean are put against and compared with a heterogeneous norm of differentiation.

Feinberg (1998) further claims that we are born into a national identity that includes some of us and excludes others and he therefore argues for an including national identity ”that takes seriously the claims of different cultural communities and other identity formations for public recognition” (p. 27). “To be a stranger”, Feinberg writes, “is to be in a social world that does not respond in the way one anticipates” (p. 137) and by that he clearly touches Bhabha (1994) who in his construction of a “third space of enunciation” wants to escape from “we” and “them”. In order to avoid this, cultural pride and cultural respect is crucial, but Feinberg like Wikan (2002) stresses the fact that there are limits for cultural respect. Respecting the fundamental human rights of the individual can mean that culture must be resisted or reduced (Wikan, 2002). Feinberg argues for ”a robust recognition” and means by that that a certain group can have a specific right to have their story told. Also Riley (2007) emphasizes the importance of recognition for identity development to establish, explaining that ”it is otherness which makes interaction both possible and necessary” (p. 176).

IDENTITY AND LEARNING

Interaction and language constitute the conditions for identity. Seen from another angle interaction and language constitute the conditions for learning. Learning is situated, according to Lave & Wenger (1991), within communities of practice where negotiating takes place through participation. Communities of practice is, as I understand the authors, a context where a history of learning is shared. The situated learning has a characteristic process, which Lave & Wenger, call Legitimate Peripheral Participation (LPP). The process is legitimated since the new member from the very beginning is allowed to participate. The participation is first peripheral, but exceeds gradually to become more and more central for the purpose of the shared project; “a newcomer’s task is short and simple, the costs of errors are small, the apprentice has little responsibility for activity as a whole” (Ibid. p. 110). Lave & Wenger stress the importance of identity development and the process of LPP as a necessary condition for learning. Identity and learning are from this view dependent from each other and seen as inseparable:

We have claimed that the development of identity is central to the careers of newcomers in communities of practice, and thus fundamental to the concept of legitimate peripheral participation. This is illustrated most vividly by the experience of newcomers to A.A., but we think that it is true of all learning. In fact, we have argued that, from the perspective we have developed here, learning and a sense of identity are inseparable. They are aspects of the same phenomenon. (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 115)

From this theoretical perspective the individual’s participation is strongly connected with the development of identity, the sense of belonging and being a member (Wenger, 1998). A parallel to this is Smith (1998) who talks about membership and socialization in to the association of readers. Lave & Wenger (1991) emphasize strongly the importance of communities of practices in order to develop identity. In the ongoing work with authentic tasks the member becomes ”an old-timer, whose changing knowledge, skill and discourse are part of a developing identity” (p. 122). This means a constant negotiation with the inner self where the story of our life becomes a part of our identity: In the same way that meaning exists in its negotiation, identity exists – not as an object in and of itself – but in the constant work of negotiating the self. It is in this cascading interplay of participation and reification that our experience of life becomes one of identity, and indeed of human existence and consciousness. (Wenger, 1998, p. 151)

Already the little child develops and internalizes in to a culture through dialogue and interaction. The child’s cultural integration do not take place through a passive imitation – the child is itself an actor together with other important actors. This is, according to Sommer (2005), the condition for children’s different childhoods within different historical, social and cultural practices. The concept of culture is by Feinberg (1998) seen ”as the system of meaning, which enables individuals to make sense of their own and other’s experiences” (p. 64). These sociocultural conditions constitute the practice where the child is included and proceeds from in its own learning. This reasoning focuses ”questions that deal with how people will master such knowledge and such skills that distinguish their own society and the time they are living in” (Säljö, 2005, p. 21). At the same time these sociocultural conditions constitute a potential for maximal development, which according to Feinberg (1998), demands a ”robust recognition” of different children’s life stories and identities.

Referring to the the Children’s Convention, Hart (1992) stresses the importance of conditions for a real and genuine participation and he sees this as necessary for the construction of both identity and learning; ”programmes should be designed which maximize the opportunity for any child to choose to participate at the highest level of his ability”. According to Qvarsell (2003) a variety of meanings has to be captured and experiences from several actors being included (p. 102). If all children are compared with an idealized Swedish childhood will the same ethnical boarders be created as de los Reyes (2005) stresses considering immigrant women. Children who could not live up to the norm in the Swedish school during the century of 1800 were categorized as lazy and obstinate (Hjörne & Säljö, 2008) and the same authors show how these categorizations still exist and constitute learning conditions for some children but with other words. Time and again the importance of facets and a variety of many identities emerges. Qvarsell (2003) stresses the fact that there is not existing a single right perspective of being a child and Halldén’s (2003) conclusion is to allow and listen to all children’s voices, but also to interpret them as an expression for a certain context. Referring to the Children’s Convention and the Swedish curriculum considering educational learning Hobohm (2003) emphasizes ”the pupil’s right to be seen not only as a pupil, but also as a human that will be given the necessary space to keep his or her own personality” (p. 46). Also according to Feinberg respect is a necessity for democracy- and knowledge development, but yet he claims the urge for  even more measures:

Hence, one of the functions of the common schools is to teach students how to advance their own ideas and to speak and write in an authentic and convincing manner. In other words, the common school has a role in teaching students how to advance their own concerns – including cultural ones – and to express themselves in ways that ring true. (Feinberg, 2, p. 245)

Today we live in a culture that is distinctly built on the written language. It is therefore crucial to become a human being who read and writes. Through language use we make our voice heard, we create meaning, build frames of reference, understanding and identity in the culture we are co-creators of (Kress, 1997). The ability to read and write is always connected with social activities and domains including relations and a life story in a chronological order. Within research about reading and writing the term Literacy is more and more used. Literacy can be seen as the ability in the written language that every person needs in order to live a satisfactorily life. Literacy is seen as social activity where social relations are integrated and where every person has her own literacy story including a variety of literacy events (Barton, 1994). Every individual participates through its family, interests, hobbies and through its surrounding world in different practices where the written language is used and identity creates and is created. Consequently there are many intersection points where learning, identity and the written language meet up in our time. Riley expresses it like ”just as history tells us who we are, identity is made of the stories we tell ourselves” (p. 244). Literacy learning therefore has a strong impact on self image and identity:

Throughout the whole life communication with other people is a Condition for social and personal development and it is through participation in linguistic and cultural communities that the identity of children and young people increase. In a culture distinctly based on the written language becoming a person who reads and writes is therefore one of the most important personal milestones during growing time. Success and failures in this function might have lifelong consequences. There is powerful risk that the confidence to the linguistic ability becomes fragile or completely lacks. (Bergö & Ewald, 2003, p. 32)

LEARNING THE WRITTEN LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY IN OUR TIME

The Swedish curiculum prescribes that ”by providing a wealth of oppurtunities for discussion, reading and writing, all pupils should be able to develop their ability to communicate and thus enhance confidence in their own language abilities” (National Agency for Education, 2006, p. 6). Confidence in one’s own ability in the written language is one important part of children’s and young people’s construction of identity. Learning deals with developing identity through language – first the oral language and then the written language. School has here a specific social mandate, but social and communicative processes do of course occur in many other contexts and are initiated long before the school start. In the early history of education demands on reading and being able to memorize a limited choice of texts were claimed – today an ability of a critical view and the ability to rate and draw conclusions from texts in books, the computer screen and so on are needed. The demands have increased and the surrounding world has in addition become more complex when our writing culture is rapidly changing through digital resources and virtual communities on the Internet. But, it is still in written communities that children’s and young people’s identity take place. It is here and now that we try to understand and live our lives. By observing and studying which processes in socialization and communication that exist and what patterns of interaction that is established I want in my future research to take part of some children’s literacy practices and identity development. Questions I carry with me is what the relation is between identity and learning in different practices of literacy. My future research will deal with different individual’s literacy experiences that take place within different landscapes of language. Will the processes for learning diverge between these different literacies and, if so, in what ways and who are participating in these different practices? These conditions will then be put against conditions for identity construction.

Dahlberg et.al. (2001) claim in addition that from a postmodern perspective we can no longer fall back on knowledge as something universal and static and therefore argue that we all must take responsibility for our own learning and creation of meaning. This means stronger demands on children today since they have to form and shape their own understanding of the world. I therefore argue that it is even more crucial to be seen as a child as well as to be able to see others and to be able, in different mediums, to express oneself ”in a way that rings true” (Feinberg, 1998, p. 245). Literacy classrooms can therefore be seen as places where face-to-face interactions shape literacy practices (McCarty, 2005). In this perspective literacy becomes a part of life, a linguistic resource for identity development and lifelong learning. Together we need to take responsibility for offering a space full of languages and ways of expressions where a variety of identity can create and be created without the expense of someone else. Or like Tatum (1997) expresses it “we may not have polluted the air, but we need to take responsibility, along with others, for cleaning it up” (p. 6).

REFERENCES

Barton, David (1994). Literacy. An Introduction to the Ecology of Written Language. Oxford: Blackwell. Bergö, Kerstin & Ewald, Annette (2003). “Liv, identitet och kultur. Om utredningen Att lämna skolan med rak rygg och svenska som demokratiämne”, i Örebro universitet. Utbildning & Demokrati vol. 12, nr 2. Bhabha, Homi (1994). The Location of Culture. London: Routledge. Caldas-Coulthard, Carmen Rosa & Iedema, Rick (2007). Identity Trouble. Hampshire & New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Dahlberg, Gunilla, Moss, Peter & Pence, Alan (2001). Från kvalitet till meningsskapande. Postmoderna perspektiv – exemplet förskolan. Stockholm: HLS Förlag. de los Reyes, Paulina (2007), ”Intersektionella perspektiv på etniska relationer”, i Etnicitet. Perspektiv på samhället. Malmö: Gleerups. de los Reyes, Paulina, Molina, Irene & Mulinari, Diana (2005). Maktens (o)lika förklädnader. kön, klass & etnicitet i det postkoloniala Sverige. Stockholm: Atlas. Eriksson-Zetterquist, Ulla & Styhre, Alexander (2007). Organisering och intersektionalitet. Malmö: Liber. Feinberg, Walter (1998). Common schools, uncommon identities. National unity & cultural differences. New Haven: Yale University Press. Hart, A. Roger (1992). ”Children’s participation. From tokenism to citizenship”, i Innocenti Essays, no 4. Florence: UNICEF, 1992 (nätpublikation). Hjörne, Eva & Säljö, Roger (2008). Att platsa i en skola för alla. Elevhälsa och förhandling om normalitet i den svenska skolan. Stockholm: Norstedts Akademiska Förlag. Hobohm, Susanne (2003). Barnets rätt, handbook för vuxna. Stockholm: Liber. Kress, Gunther (1997). Before writing. Rehinking the paths to literacy. London & New York: Routledge. Lemke, Jay (2008). “Identity, Development, and Desire: Critical Questions”, i Identity Trouble. Hampshire & New York: Palgrave Macmillan. McCarty, Teresa (red.). (2005). Literacy and power in schooling. Mahwah New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Nordin-Hultman, Elisabeth (2004). Pedagogiska miljöer och barns subjektsskapande. Malmö: Liber. Peterson, Abby & Hjerm, Mikael (2007). Etnicitet. Perspektiv på samhället. Malmö: Gleerups. Qvarsell, Birgitta (2003). “Barns perspektiv och mänskliga rättigheter. Godhetsmaximering eller kunskapsbildning?”, i Pedagogisk Forskning i Sverige. Nr 1-2, 2003. Riley, Philip (2007). Language, culture and identity. An ethnolinguistic perspective. London: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd. Sommer, Dion (2005). Barndomspsykologi. Utveckling i en förändrad värld. Tallin: Runa. Tatum, Beverly Daniel (1997). “Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?” And Other Conversations About Race. New York: Basic Books. Utbildningsdepartementet (1998). Läroplan för det obligatoriska skolväsendet, förskoleklassen och fritidshemmet. Stockholm: Skolverket. Wenger, Etienne (1998). Communities of Practice. Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Learning in doing: social, cognitive, and computational perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wikan, Unni (2002). Generous Betrayal. Politics of Culture in the New Europe. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

ÖVRIGA KÄLLOR

http://www.ne.se/sok/identitet?type=NE 2009-05-30 (Nationalencyklopedin)