University of Leicester
Department of Sociology

How to conceptualise a postmodern Understanding of Identity in relation to “Race”

Christoph Behrends

Table of Contents

Introduction ... 3

Definition of terms ... 3

Postmodernism ... 3
Identity ... 5
Race ... 6

Two Perspectives – Constructionism versus Essentialism ... 7

Race as a social construct ... 8

The Structure of Identity ... 9

Racialisation ... 10

Two Sorts of Racism ... 11
Whiteness ... 12

Characteristics of a postmodern Understanding of Identity in relation to “Race” ... 12

A contemporary example ... 15

Bibliography ... 18

Introduction

The issue about “race” is still of great significance in today’s societies. Recent incidents like racist behaviour in football¹ show how deep racist tendencies are still embedded in people’s minds – in spite of consistent enlightenment. But these examples only show the peak of racist tendencies. Racial imagery in media and arts is central to the organisation of the modern world (Dyer 1997: 1), as we will also see in an example from the Guardian Student later on. Furthermore, the scientific “foundation” of theories of “race” continues to be a disputed question for biology as well as for the social sciences (Lang 2000: x).

This essay is about what the term “race” implies, about the coherence of “race” and identity and implements a postmodern approach to the understanding of identity. Before these terms are analyzed, defining them might be helpful. One thing should be beard in mind during the reading process: the abstractions of types of “race”, class, gender, and sexuality do not take individual difference into account (Zack 1998: 7). However, they have moral importance and take influence on how human beings treat one another.

Definition of terms

Postmodernism

There are numerous, varying definitions of the term “postmodernism”. However, most of them agree upon some general terms and one central idea. According to these definitions, postmodernism is a broad intellectual trend or movement in culture, arts, architecture and way of thinking. It is

characterized by emphasis on the ideas of the de-centeredness of meaning, the value and autonomy of the local and the particular, the infinite possibilities of the human existence, and the coexistence, in a kind of collage or pastiche, of different cultures, perspectives, time periods, and ways of thinking. (Glossary of Dr. Fidel Fajardo-Acosta’s World Literature Website²).

Academics still discuss about what postmodernism means and whether it even exists or not. Proponents of this concept argue that this era is a discrete progression of “modernism”, because it inhibits new qualities. Postmodernism rejects certain features of Cartesian modern thought, such as universalizing tendencies of philosophy, and stresses the priority of the social to the indivual.³ Postmodernists argue that individuals are merely constructs of social forces and neglect the existence of a unique transcendental, objective truth. Compared to modernism, postmodernism is characterized as less geometric, less functional, less austere, more playful, and more willing to include elements from diverse times and cultures.⁴ The model is accompanied by certain theories about the determination of knowledge, such as Donna Harraway’s work about “situated knowledge” (Harraway 1990).

The emergence of these developments labelled as postmodernism also made new demands on sociology. The perspective of the absence of a single objective truth required new approaches to investigate social relationships (and the subject) and made up fundamentally new approaches. Many sociological works are based on the work of Derrida and Foucault. Foucault taught literature and invented a method to analyse historical texts for power structures and the discursive background of texts. The deconstructive approach is widely common in nowadays sociology. Among other authors, Baumann, Laclau, Giddens, Butler, Hekman, Said, Hall, Bhabha and Rattansi have contributed to this field of study.

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1 http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,1563,1361986,00.html (accessed 04/12/04)
2 http://fajardo-acosta.com/worldlit/glossary.htm (accessed 22/11/04)
3 Glossary of Philosophical Terms, University of Hong Kong http://www.hku.hk/philodep/ugrad/glossary.htm (accessed 22/11/04)
4 Conrad P. Kottak: Glossary of Anthropology http://highered.mcgrawhill.com/sites/0072426527/student_view0/chapter23/key_terms.html (accessed 22/11/04)