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Summary media, culture and diversity
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H1. Concepts, debates and approches1. Identity and diversity in Western society
1.1. About identity
- Ubiquity of identity
o We use identity categories to make sense of who we are as a person or how we present
ourselves to others
o Ex. black, male, bisexual, …
o ! Physical and bodily traits and sociocultural features (ex. Nationality, religion,
social class, …): basis for identity categories
Richard Jenkins
Sociologist
- Identification: “the systematic establishment and signification, between individuals, between
collectivities and between individuals and collectivities, of relationships of similarity and
difference”
Identity “denotes the ways in which individuals and collectivities are distinguished
in their relations with other individuals and collectivities”
Ex. A person may self-identify as gay because experiences his sexual desires as similar
to how people who are described and/or who identify as gay, homosexual, or queer
experience sexuality, and as different from how people who are described and/or who
identify as heterosexual experience sexuality
- Individual and collective identities are both an interactional product of ‘external’ identification
by others, as of ‘internal’ self-identification
Ex. a person may self-identify as a woman because she has been repeatedly identified
by others as a woman and has learnt about being a woman since the day she was born
- The process of identification is shaped by and dependent on culture: discourses &
representations of identities
in culture encompasses cultural artefacts (e.g. books, clothing), practices (e.g.
rituals, habits), and norms and values (e.g. proper behaviour), where we encounter
discourses and representations of identities.
Cultural discourses & representations about identities
- (Re)produced in popular media culture
- Help people making sense of who they are as a person…
o Create stability, clarity and coherence
o Sense of belonging with the people they share their identity with
- BUT may also hamper the lives of people as they engender normative assumptions about people
o Ex. when born with male genitalia, it is very likely that you will be raised a boy and/or be
expected to act, walk, talk, and dress “like a man,” even when you feel you want to act
or walk differently than what is considered “normal” or “idealized” masculine behaviour
within a given cultural context
- Note: Context-specific! (time and place)
1.2. Social constructionist perspective
The postulation that identities and the cultural discourses and representations about identity
categories differ from one cultural context to another should be understood as a social
constructionist argument.
Social constructionism
- = a theory of knowledge
- has become a dominant approach to thinking about identity from the 1970s on
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, - Does not dismiss that there is an objective reality (which refers to its ontological position) but
argues that how we make sense of that reality is socially constructed (which refers to its
epistemological position)
- Even though many traditions of social constructionism (e.g. historicism, symbolic interactionism,
materialist feminism) exist
! identities are socially constructed and vary culturally and historically
Opposes an essentialist understanding of identity
- Essentialism:
o assumes that certain identities (e.g. being a woman, being gay) are natural, biological,
and ahistorical, existing prior to the birth of a person
o assumes persons with same identity share the same feelings and experiences,
throughout history and across the globe
ex. if you are a woman, you share certain feelings and experiences with all
women, throughout history and across the globe
o men and women ‘inherently different beings who belong to separate categories’
<-> social constructionism (= non-essentialist philosophy): argues that how a person makes sense of
their identities depends on how, within a given time and place, people make sense of aspects that
relate to those identities
SC perspective of gender does not dismiss that there are differences between men and women, but
stresses that these differences should be seen as the outcome of social processes and cultural
practices
1.3. Sociocultural diversity, inequality, and identity politics
Western society
- concept sociocultural diversity used as an umbrella term to refer to the coexistence of
people who differ by gender, sexual identity, racial, ethnic, or diasporic identity, social class, or
dis/ability
sociocultural diversity includes “all kinds of differences between individuals and groups”
has been used as a neutral term
to imply that there are myriad ways of being and identifying oneself in society and that everyone is
treated equally.
BUT…
- Discourses about diversity are deeply political
- Discursive constructions of identities as ‘normal’, ‘mainstream’, or ‘superior’ vs. identities
constructed as ‘abnormal’, ‘deviant’, or ‘inferior’
o Constructing identities as binary, oppositional, and hierarchical
Ex. men and women are seen as two very distinct categories of people, in which
men are granted more forms of power than women.
o Constructing cultural repertoires that limit diversity within identity categories
Ex. Even though there are many ways to be black or to be a man, only a limited
set of behaviour, attitudes, and expressions is considered normal or appropriate.
! By repeating these binary, hierarchical, and normative assumptions about people’s identities
Western society embeds, structural inequalities in institutions (e.g. education, justice),,
culture, and everyday life practices
people feel need to unite with others who share the same identity to make visible, question, and
overthrow structural forms of oppression
People are able to form a group to claim agency and act out to change the sociocultural status
quo.
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, Engage in identity politics = The forging of ‘new languages’ of identity combined with acting
to change social practices, usually through the formation of coalitions where at least some
values are shared
have led to contradictory assessments of the value and/or dangers of said politics
ex. the emergence of social movements organized around gender or race. Among them,
there were feminist movements (e.g. radical feminists) and civil rights movements (e.g.
Black Power) that aimed to unite respectively women through emphasizing a shared
women’s culture and black people by celebrating a shared black culture
Poststructuralist and social constructionist scholars, however, pointed out how this shared culture was
presented as homogenous and essentialist
several social movements ignored or downplayed the “instability and internal heterogeneity of
identity categories”
They disregarded how the intersections with other axes of identity (e.g. dis/ability, gender, race)
can lead to experiences not included in the cultural discourses or representations of social
movements.
Alternatively, emphasizing a shared identity and culture as strategic:
- Helps formation of a social collective & clear set of political and/or cultural goals
- Does not have to imply that other intersecting identities are annulled
- Shared identity can be experienced & signified in diverse ways
Ex. Such coalitions may then be organized around the shared identity of women without annulling the
multiple identities people have within that coalition. Such collectives are deliberately organized around
the shared identity category of ‘women’ but include women who differ by sexual identity, race,
ethnicity, class, and so on. Further, they acknowledge that the shared identity of ‘womanhood’ can be
experienced and signified in diverse and often contradictory ways. At the same time, in practice, we
have time and again seen identity-based collectives that drew from essentialist assumptions of identity
rather than social constructionist or strategic ones.
Focus on #MeToo
- “Me Too”: set up as activist group in 2006 by Tarana Burke to support survivors of sexual
violence and other forms of systemic abuse of power (mainly women of color)
- Went viral in 2017 as a hashtag to call out sexual abuse and encourage other survivors to make
explicit the magnitude of abuse
- Abuse reported by (mainly) white Hollywood actresses received more media attention than
abuse reported by the young women of color
o High-profile persons aware of symbolic capital & privileges, use these to serve others
o Women in precarious positions do not dispose of the same symbolic or materials means
to call out men in powerful positions
o illustrates why it is important to acknowledge the diversity as well as disparities among
women because of other intersecting identities
1.4. Intersectionality
Kimberle Crenshaw
- Scholar in law, critical race theory and civil rights
- ‘Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color’
(1991)
o Violence against women of color: shaped by intersecting patterns of racism and sexism
o coined and interpreted the concept of intersectionality
- particular setup
o she wanted to challenge the way identity-based politics were practices
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, o valued that identity politics exposed practices of oppression as social and systemic
instead of isolated and individual, something that often happened in the framing of
violence against women
o identity politics to be a source of “strength, community, and intellectual development”
and able to unite people around a shared identity and cause.
Yet, Crenshaw took issue with how identity politics “conflates or ignores intragroup differences”
argued that the discourses used in identity politics are focused on challenging either racism or
sexism but rarely acknowledge the intersectionality between both minoritized identities
to tackle the issue of violence against women of color effectively, we should understand this
issue as “the product of intersecting patterns of both sexism and racism”
her article
- tackles three forms of intersectionality
o Structural intersectionality:
The ways in which the location of women of color at the intersection of race and
gender makes our actual experience of domestic violence, rape, and remedial
reform qualitatively different than that of white women
pointed out that legislation and policies aiming to challenge gender-based
violence often start from white women’s experiences, thereby ignoring structural
hindrances non-white women may experience (e.g. different ideas about family
honour, refugee women risking deportation, etc.).
o Political intersectionality:
about making sure that an intersectional perspective is used as a basis for politics
– creating policies and laws that acknowledge structural intersectionality
Intersectionality needs to be the fundamental basis for politics and policies
challenged the identity politics of feminist movements and antiracist movements
that unwillingly contributed to marginalizing the violence against women of color
women of color who want to fight oppression are often forced to split their energy
between two formations (i.e. black men and white women) that do not experience
double subordination
Result: antiracist identity politics led to antiracist discourses that dismissed
questions about gender and sexism whereas feminist identity politics resulted in
antisexist discourses that failed to take into account race and racism.
o Representational intersectionality:
Cultural construction of women of color
Using an intersectional lens to ask questions about the sociocultural implications
of representations
Crenshaws reflections on an American lawsuit against the members of 2 Live Crew
- Arrested and charged under Florida’s obscenity statute, June 1990
- Two days before: Federal court judge considers As Nasty as They Wanna Be (1989) legally
offensive and obscene
o “It is an appeal to dirty thoughts and the loins, not to the intellect and the mind.”
o considered to lack serious literary, artistic, or political value while being offensive as
defined by state law.
- Members were acquitted (October ’90)
o record stores in several counties in Florida were not allowed to sell the album
- album’s ‘obscene character’ only later overturned (in ‘92)
o on the basis that the federal judge had been unable to demonstrate why the album
lacked artistic value.
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