Identity politics

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Identity politics is political action to advance the interests of members of a group because of a real or supposed shared identity or characteristic (such as race or gender), usually in response to the perception that certain human rights have been denied to them. The term has been used principally in United States politics since the 1970s.

1 Overview
2 Debates and Criticism
3 Forms of identity politics
4 References
5 Books & Articles
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] Overview

The early history of identity politics was summarized by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, who notes that it began with the politicization of the women's movement in the 1970s. When women began forming groups and organizations to share experience, they were criticized for indulging in group therapy instead of political action. Carol Hanisch replied in a well-known essay, "The Personal is Political."^[1]

The best-known aim of identity politics in the United States has been to free groups from invidious discrimination with regard to human rights, and as Crenshaw notes has been in tension with "dominant conceptions of social justice," which are based on universal rights.^[2] Along the political spectrum identity politics are based on the argument that members of a putatively oppressed group can use their identity as a source of collective resistance to their commonly felt oppression, and that these particular problems must be dealt with separately, on their own self-contained level, before the specific group can unite with the wider working class to deal with overall social oppression, such as that which is perceived by leftists to be the product of capitalism. Essentially, identity politics is based on the concept that special oppression requires special liberation, i.e., special circumstances existing outside of the wider one of class consciousness.

Identity politics may be based around race, ethnicity, sex, religion, caste, sexual orientation, physical disability or some other assigned or perceived trait (see below for a more complete, but still non-exhaustive, list). Some groups have historically blended social class analysis and class consciousness into such beliefs — e.g., the Black Panther Party — but by and large, identity politics are based on surface and "bloodline" characteristics only.

Particular focus in any form of identity politics is on the contrast between what is considered to be a social, political and occupational privilege of the dominant group(s) as compared to what is considered discrimination faced by the oppressed group. In this relationship, the dominant, normative group is privileged as compared to the oppression of the nondominant group. Adherents of identity politics attempt to deal with and seek to alleviate injustices associated with real or perceived oppression against them based on that identity. This may involve social and legislative reform like affirmative action with the goal that people within the group can in this way achieve equality.

A quite different set of aims is sometimes included in the term identity politics - the aims of separatist or nationalist groups for self-determination. In the international realm, "national self-determination" is a well recognized principle of international law and is recognized in the charter of the United Nations. The desire for autonomy of racial, cultural or other groups in the United States is usually indicated by qualifying their aims with terms such as "separatist" or "nationalist." This may lead to some confusion of terms, as advocates for a single, majoritarian national identity are also referred to as "nationalists." Majoritarian identity politics is discussed on a Web site [1].

Ethnic nationalism may be regarded as a form of identity politics within the wider international community, as well as within individual countries. The broader categories of identity politics are Irredentism, Revanchism, and Jingoism.

[edit] Debates and Criticism

Identity politics is a phenomenon, almost by definition, of liberal democratic societies in which human rights are recognized, and the term is not usually used to refer to dissident movements within single-party or authoritarian states. Some discussion and criticism therefore is more properly concerned with the broader political system, or with the particular claims of human rights that are made. Some critics "see in human rights nothing but a rhetoric that makes the cage of globalizing liberalism more bearable." ^[3] The argument that state regulation of abortion violates the human rights of women, to take another example, is a lively legal and political question. See, for instance, the differing opinions in the United States Supreme Court decision in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992). But there is little criticism of the right, in liberal societies, of women to organize political action groups and work to vindicate their rights; most criticism in this area is addressed to the nature of the particular claim.

Identity politics in short is a tactic, not a philosophy. The term has been applied retroactively to varying movements that long predate coinage of the term. Scholar Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. discussed identity politics extensively in his book The Disuniting of America. Schlesinger, a strong supporter of the civil rights movement, argues that a liberal democracy requires a common basis for culture and society to function. In his view, basing one's politics on self-identifying as part of a marginalized group perceived to be outside of the mainstream of society causes this common basis to break down, and therefore works against creating real opportunities for ending this marginalization. Schlesinger believes that movements for civil rights should aim toward full acceptance and integration of marginalized groups into the mainstream culture, not perpetuate that marginalization.

Other critics of identity politics claim that it has essentialist overtones, arguing that some of its proponents assume or imply that gender, race, or other group characteristics are fixed or biologically determined traits, rather than socially constructed. Such criticism is most common with regard to groups based on claims of gender or sexual orientation, where the nature of the defining trait is in dispute. Some GLBT rights activists, in particular, criticize the identity politics approach to gay rights, particularly the approach based around the terms and concepts of queer and queer theory. Gay and lesbian activists work for full acceptance of gays and lesbians in the institutions and culture of mainstream society, but it is alleged that "queer" activists instead make a point of declaring themselves outside of the mainstream and having no desire to be accepted by or join it. The former criticize the latter's attitude as counterproductive and as perpetuating discrimination and societal attitudes against LGBT people. [2] [3]

Still other critics have argued that groups based on shared identity, other than class, can divert energy and attention from more fundamental issues, such as class conflict in capitalist societies. Such arguments have been expressed by a number of writers, such as Eric Hobsbawm,[4] Todd Gitlin,[5] Michael Tomasky, Richard Rorty, Sean Wilentz, Robert W. McChesney, and Jim Sleeper.[6] Hobsbawm in particular has criticized nationalisms, and the principle of national self-determination adopted internationally after the First World War, since national governments are often merely an expression of a ruling class or power, and their proliferation was a source of the wars of the twentieth century.

[edit] Forms of identity politics

Ethnic nationalisms such as:
Religion-based identities such as:
Gender or sexuality-based identities such as:
Disability-based identities such as:
- Disability rights
- The National Asthma Campaign
- Autism rights
- Deaf culture
- Diabetes
- Fat acceptance
- Thalassaemia

[edit] References

1. Carol Hanisch, "The Personal is Political," in Shulamit Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003 (first pub. 1970). ISBN 13: 9780641711688.

2. Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, "Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color," in Kimberlé Crenshaw, Neil Gotanda, et al., editors, Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement, New York: The New Press, 1995, p. 357.

3. Samuel Moyn, "On the Genealogy of Morals" (reviewing Lynn Hunt, Inventing Human Rights: A History), The Nation, April 16, 2007, p. 31 (attributing a view to certain "Marxists").

[edit] Books & Articles

W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (New York: Penguin Books, 1989, M.E. Elbert, ed., first published 1903).
David Campbell, Writing Security. United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity (University of Minnesota Press, Revised Edition, 1998). ISBN 978-0816631445
Walker Connor, "Ethnology and the Peace of South Asia," World Politics, Vol. 22, No. 1 (October 1969), pp. 51–86.
Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914-1991.New York: Pantheon Books, 1994. ISBN 0-394-58575-5.
Shulamit Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003 (first pub. 1970). ISBN 9780641711688
Yash Ghai, Public Participation and Minorities, (London: Minority Rights Group International, 2003)
Toni Morrison, "Home," in The House that Race Built (New York: Pantheon Books, 1997)p. 3; see also the other essays in this excellent collection.
Tzvetan Todorov, On Human Diversity: Nationalism, Racism, and Exoticism in French Thought (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1993).
Monica Duffy Toft, The Geography of Ethnic Violence: Identity, Interests, and the Indivisibility of Territory (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003). ISBN 0-691-12383-7.