OUGD501 - Identity Seminar

We had to come up with things that make us, us -
Identity Creation

• Education - subjects chosen, grades, grammar school/comprehensive etc
• Occupation
• Social network
• Family situation
• Background
• Where you live
• Gender
• Skills
• Clothes
• Fear
• Background
• Religion
• Sextuality
• Sense of humour

We then had to come up with ways in which people express their identity:

• Tattoos/piercings
• Cosmetics
• Voicing your opinion
• Skills
• Cosmetic surgery
• Clothes
• Lifestyle option
• Job
• Conspicuous consumption
• Reality vs people

Stuart Hall - Circuit of Culture

Identity Formation
Process from psychoanalysis

Jacques Lacan
He came up with 'The Homelette'
This is a scrambled up self of information, and refers to the stage of babies
Babies don't understand anything - for example don't realise their arm is attached to their body

He also came up with The 'Mirror Stage'
For the metaphor that babies suddenly look at their self and realise they are a capable human being

Sense of self (subjectivity)
Built on:
An illusion of wholeness
Receiving views from others

Result = own subjectivity is fragile

Constructing the Others
Problem: relies on the assumption of opposition and radical otherness

Identification
Stores up unstable identities through the illusion of unity shared fashions, belief systems, values