Abstract
Wayne Brekhus’ The Sociology of Identity: Authenticity, Multidimensionality, and Mobility is a timely reminder of the relevance of identity for contemporary politics, illustrated by how both Trump and the Brexit-architects exploited ideas of authenticity in their campaigns. Brekhus’ general argument is that identity is socially created and negotiated, and that three dimensions of identity are of special interest – namely authenticity, intersectionality, and mobility.
The book has five main chapters. The first chapter examines sociological approaches to identity. Brekhus gives a fine discussion of his selected authors and their respective traditions’ contributions to identity theory. Symbolic interactionism, Goffman, Bourdieu, intersectionality, and the literature on symbolic boundaries are among the central sources for understanding identity. The central point of this theoretical chapter is that identity is many-sided, flexible, and mobile. Identities are not essences, but are performed, embraced or dismissed as relevant in broader identity repertoires and across social space. In Chapter 2, Brekhus focuses on how collective identities related to social units of different sizes, from families to nations, have some, but not all traits in common with individual identities. Nations, ethnic and racial categories, social movements, organizations, and neighborhoods are all seen as forms of collective identities claiming loyalty of individuals and prescribing specific rules of performance.
The next three chapters relate to each of the three themes that, according to Brekhus, characterize identity. The first of these looks at the performance of authenticity in subcultures such as hip hop/rap and punk, and how authenticity with regard to categorical identities such as nation, ethnicity, and race may depend on phenotypical traits as well as mastery of, for example, dress and speech codes. The chapter provides vivid examples of performances of authenticity. For example, in the ‘ethnic’ restaurant business, these are central to success, and unsuccessful performances may exclude one from specific subcultures. The following chapter on social inequality, power, and multidimensional identities, draws on Brekhus’ own empirical research and theorizing of ‘marked’ and ‘unmarked’ identities. Here, he shows how belonging to the marked side of relational dichotomies such as hetero/queer, black/white, and native/immigrant implies less power to define identities and more need to engage in identity work. In the final chapter on mobility and fluidity, we are introduced to concepts such as code-switching, identity currencies, and identity commuting. Here, the situational and fluid aspects of identity are discussed and illustrated through research on gang members pursuing different roles in the street and in their families, and by men travelling to gay zones of the city in order to perform their sexual identity.
Throughout the book, Brekhus illustrates complex theoretical arguments by drawing on empirical evidence from research on different types of identities. In each of the main chapters, he describes a number of empirical studies in detail, ending each chapter with a list for further reading that includes abstracts of the mentioned empirical studies. This makes the book, which demands a certain insight into sociological traditions and established identity theories, more relevant as a tool for teaching.
The theoretical contribution of the book lies in the combination of different sociological theories of identity, and the singling out of three specific dimensions for further analysis. Together, this provides a broader perspective than what has often been the case in previous theorizing of identity. One example that illustrates how different theoretical departures have impoverished identity theory is the traditionally fierce debate in ethnicity studies between so-called ‘primordialists’ and strategic identity theorists over the authenticity of ethnic attachment. For Brekhus, this is a false contradiction since emotional attachment anchors collective identities, which at the same time demand performance and strategic adaptation. As a reader, I miss more discussion of distinctions between collective identities of different scales, and how categorical identities related to statuses such as gender, race, and ethnicity work differently than social identities anchored in everyday-togetherness in schools, organizations, subcultures, and neighborhoods. Brekhus partly attends to such differences through the focus on marked versus unmarked identities, but more could be said about this.
When I studied the identity work of children of immigrants in Norway in the late 1990s, sociologists were critical to the identity concept: either because they regarded social class as imperative to ethnicity/race in order to explain inclusion and exclusion, or because the concept of identity was stamped as essentialist. Whatever reason for disregarding the relevance of identity for sociology back then, developments since the 1990s have proved that identity is, or at least should be, a central concept in sociology. Brekhus has much to teach us about the dynamics and relevance of identity for present-day political change and struggle.