Abstract
Identity is a troublesome concept in social theory, to the extent that some scholars have suggested abandoning it altogether (Brubaker and Cooper, 2000). Yet the deployment of identity continues to be central to many forms of political life, and a rich literature examines the tensions and contradictions of forming identity in social movements. This new edited volume presents a cogent distillation of the debates around collective identity in the social movements literature and beyond, followed by eight insightful case studies.
The central focus of the volume is ‘the identity dilemma’. Building on Jasper’s (e.g. 1997, 2014) previous work, the volume explores the ‘necessary fiction’ of collective identity: a fixed collective identity inevitably erases heterogeneity and internal inequalities, but it is often critical for effective political mobilization (p. 3). A great deal of ‘identity work’ produces collective identities, but once created, such identities can take on a life of their own: ‘collective identities do some things for us and other things to us’ (p. 6). The editors present several related dilemmas to the deployment of collective identity in social movements. The extension dilemma (p. 7) results from the tension between building a broader collective identity and managing disagreements on tactics and goals that can alienate some members. The dilemma of powerful allies (pp. 7–8) results when groups seek wide exposure but run the risk of powerful allies pursuing their own agendas and co-opting the group. The band of brothers dilemma (p. 8) results when loyalties to sub-groups begin to outweigh loyalties to the larger group. Finally, the assimilation dilemma (p. 8) faces individuals who must decide whether identifying with a potentially stigmatized group will be more beneficial than downplaying stigmatized identity and blending in. Both internal and external contestation, the editors point out, are ubiquitous in the process of constructing collective identity, and carry with them both benefits and risks to a movement’s longevity.
Social movement scholars and students will find both the introduction and the first chapter of the volume particularly useful – here, the authors deftly summarize decades of scholarly debate on the question of collective identity in both North American and European social movements traditions. Nor do they limit themselves to social movements literature – the first chapter begins with a discussion of class consciousness and nationalism as two major areas of theorizing on identity, and moves into the critiques of dominant feminisms by women of color in the United States between the 1960s through the early 1990s, as well as discussing theories of identity in the study of race and ethnicity and in European new social movements traditions. Since the study of LGBTQ movements in the United States has been a particularly influential area for studying the tensions of collective identity in sociology, both in terms of the internal contestations that shape collective identities as well as the strategic uses to which collective identity can be put, the editors discuss this scholarship at length. They also take seriously the role of emotion in the formation of collective identity. The range of scholarship these introductory chapters cover is impressive, though the editors perhaps do not go far enough in articulating ways in which social movements scholars can more fruitfully integrate insights from these other areas, such as the study of race and ethnicity, preferring to summarize them separately.
Each empirical chapter in the volume speaks directly to the questions of the identity dilemma the editors raise. The first part of the book focuses on strategic identities. In a chapter on nonsectarian social movements (including workers and LGBTQ groups) in Beirut and Belfast, John Nagle suggests that the identity dilemma offers distinct concerns in contexts where governance is premised on divisions: here, groups mobilize for the right to reject statist delineations of identity (p. 46), but run the risk of being positioned as linked to a particular ethnic group (p. 59). In a chapter on autonomous movements in Spain, Cristina Flesher Fominaya shows that collective identities, in some cases, are based on a refusal to define a collective identity (p. 82). Importantly, for the movement leaders Flesher Fominaya studies, this refusal is not a passive process; they engage the identity dilemma by carefully and consistently rejecting attempts by external forces to impose a fixed identity on them. Clare Saunders examines the possibilities of using survey instruments to study collective identities, using the 2009 and 2010 National Climate Change Marches in London as a case study. Saunders argues that surveys can complement qualitative studies, the most common method scholars have used for studying collective identities in movements (p. 88): by ‘casting the net widely’ (p. 104), they can assess the extent to which a broader range of participants share a sense of unity, as well as the extent of contestation. Neil Stammers draws on extensive work on the history of human rights, showing how the collective identity of ordinary working people in 17th and 19th century England as ‘freeborn Englishman’, positioned against the feudal aristocracy, played a critical role in the articulation of human rights principles (p. 115). He ends by proposing a fourfold framework for analyzing social movements in terms of identities, adversaries, societal goals, and modes of activism (p. 125).
The second part of the book focuses on stigmatized identities. Marian Barnes’ chapter analyzes the mental health service user movement in England, showing that ‘mental patients’ can usefully reposition terms of abuse into an oppositional consciousness (p. 132), but also must contend with official discourses that seek to structure identities, and can even leverage these identities to support the very systems activists oppose (p. 133). Barnes discusses some fascinating dilemmas mental health users face – whether to identify as people who ‘have’ a mental illness or as ‘being’ mentally ill (p. 137), or whether to shore up opposition or blur the distinction between the ‘mad’ and the ‘sane’ (p. 141). Huub van Baar focuses on the role of ‘acts of collective memory’ in challenging the positioning of the Roma people in Europe as ‘rootless’ and ‘peoples without history’, even in ways that seem transient. Van Baar notes the dilemmas Roma activists face in strategically representing their collective identity to the state while maintaining control over their agendas (p. 163). In a chapter on infertility movements in Poland, Elzbieta Korolczuk analyzes online discussion boards to examine the process of constructing collective identity among people contending with infertility and the tradeoffs that ensue. Korolczuk finds that the activists downplay gender and internal disagreements – for example, around wanting a child or not – as they make demands on the state. One solution activists pursue is ‘subdivision’: they form smaller communities within the broader collective while remaining committed to the larger category. Another is dispersion, where they use different identities to appeal to different external audiences. Finally, in a chapter on right-wing nationalism in Hungary, Umut Korkut examines the role of cults of personality, focused on particular Hungarian literary figures, in binding together and articulating collective identity on the far right.
In all, The Identity Dilemma will be a useful resource to scholars of social movements, and the introduction and empirical chapters, particularly the chapters by Flesher Fominaya, Barnes, van Baar, and Korolczuk, are accessible enough to a non-specialist audience to assign to advanced undergraduate students. The organization of the chapters, however, might have been organized to more closely follow the themes of the volume. The distinction between ‘strategic’ and ‘stigmatized’ identities seems artificial; it is not clear, for example, why the Hungarian far right falls under stigmatized identity. More generally, what the volume sometimes lacks, and would be well positioned to offer, is a proposal for future directions in the field. For example, the literature on collective identity often focuses on movement strategy but less on institutional conditions and processes of state classification. A few of the chapters, on Romany mobilization, mental health user movements, and nonsectarian movements, address the state, but the editors make only a passing mention of the state in the introduction (p. 12). Furthermore, the volume contains mainly examples from Europe and North America, and a focus on feminisms and LGBTQ activism in the introductory chapters does not carry through in the choice of empirical chapters. While the exclusion of Africa, Asia, and Latin America is not particularly surprising, given the orientation of European and North American social movements literature in sociology, the absence continues to be worth mentioning. A volume that tackles such a fundamental social theoretical question as that of identity is bound to encounter limits of coverage, but it also positions the editors well to identify gaps, limitations, and missed opportunities that could be the basis for future inquiry.