1.8 Operacionalización de las Variables
2.3.6 Sistema de prevención de la salud desde la comunicación
The concept of identity has been explored and addressed from a variety of perspectives and theoretical paradigms (Paul du Gay, Hall, Althusser, Woodward, Gilroy, Anderson to name only a few). While it may not feasible to explore the variety of the prevailing perspectives, it is worth partially exploring the reasons that identity matters and attracts so much attention. I will argue, by employing an example from the current political scene in Greece, that collective and individual self-‐positions are closely interrelated and are often shaped and/or saturated by the public political and economical sphere.
In 2010 Greece has been characterised as the ‘European Union’s most indebted country’ (Guardian, 3/01/10) and this resulted in a large financing package/loan by the International Monetary Fund (I.M.F). This in turn led in a policy of austerity measures and the respective escalation of unemployment as evident in the following chart by eurostat:
Unemployed persons, in millions, seasonally adjusted, January 2000 - August 2013 Source:Eurostat (http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=une_nb_m&lang=en, accessed 7/10/13).
The rise of unemployment cannot be restricted to political and economical terms as it jeopardises individual and collective self-‐positions. As Paul Du Gay (1997:288) argues, ‘who and what we consider ourselves and others to be as persons is frequently articulated in relationship to work’. In this view, the individual deprived of work is simultaneously deprived of the professional self-‐ position. This deprivation in turn might also affect self-‐positions related to the intrapersonal level. The lack of financial resources could affect familial stability and relocate the parental and/or matrimonial relationships. Therefore, the cost of unemployment has side effects that might force the person to re-‐examine former individual self-‐positions.
As regards the collective self-‐positions there is evidence in the example of Greece that the Eurozone Economic Crisis affected in a negative way positions related to the group’s political, social and ethnic identities. For instance, many scholars have attributed the rise of the Golden Dawn ‘neo-‐Nazi, nationalist movement’ (Koronaiou & Sakellariou, 2013: 332) to the crisis and the growing unemployment (Ellinas, 2013; Georgiadou, 2013; Bistis, 2013, etc). Golden Dawn can be described as an anti-‐immigrant political party that supports ‘the model of an ethno-‐culturally homogeneous state, the party defines nationality in terms of race, blood and ancestry’ (Georgiadou, 2013: 88).
According to Adamjee (2013: 57) the crisis has great ramifications for the European political stability as it provides ‘the perfect breeding ground for extreme, undemocratic ideologies to flourish’. In this view, I could argue that the legitimate presence of the Golden Dawn in the Greek parliament indicates that the crisis affected the citizen’s democratic and political values in such a degree so as to vote for ‘a nationalist agenda that calls for the expulsion of illegal immigrants and the exclusion of non-‐Greeks from the political community’ (Ellinas, 2013: 17). Thus, it resulted in reaffirmation and renegotiation of identity in collective and individual self-‐positions.
In summary, I would argue that the exploration of identity arrives at an opportune time not only for the Greeks as a separate ethnicity, but also for the
Greeks as Europeans. Habermas (2003: 293) on the question of European identity argues,
‘Only the consciousness of a shared political fate, and the prospect of a common future, can halt outvoted minorities from the obstruction of a majority will. The citizens of one nation must regard the citizens of another nation as fundamentally one of us’
At this moment of economic and political crisis, could we possibly argue that the Germans, as a dominant economical power, regard Portuguese, Irish, Greeks and Spanish –or what is known as PIGS-‐ as ‘one of them’? This is why it looks challenging at this historical and political point to explore how Greek diasporic populations negotiate aspects of their ethno-‐cultural identity in reference to the metropolis –Greece and Cyprus-‐; in reference to the dominant society and host country –England; and in reference to the broader borders of European Union.
2. Identity: Approaches and Perceptions
The concept of identity has been analysed from at least three different scientific perspectives (psychological, sociological and philosophical) in order to explore not only “who we are” but “why we are who we are”. In the literature two main approaches prevail on the concept of identity: the essentialist and the non-‐ essentialist.
According to the essentialist approach, identity is a fixed and stable set of characteristics that are maintained across time and space. Gilroy (1997: 310) characterises essentialised identities as ‘primordial identities’ and argues that
‘from this perspective, identity predates history and culture. It is part of our fixed, essential being, persisting from time immemorial without significant change and alteration’.
This approach to identity deprives the subject from any agency in the process of identity formation and ignores the constant impact that the socio-‐cultural context might have on the subject. In this view, subjects inherit ‘in some predetermined way’ (ibid) a primordial identity that is maintained through time.
This approach to identity ignores the impact of changes that might be attributed biological, psychological and maturity processes or to the effect of socio-‐cultural variables.
Moreover, essential approaches to identity might be associated with the generation of stereotypes. Woodward (2000: 52) describes stereotype as ‘a simplified, and possibly exaggerated, representation of the most common typical characteristics associated with a category’. Essentialist perspectives on identity attribute specific characteristics to a group of people or to a specific category, thus stereotype this category. Stereotyped categories might be related to gender, nation/ethnicity etc. and can evoke racism or discrimination following a vicious circle where essentialist identities inform stereotypes; stereotypes generate discrimination; and discrimination maintains and prolongs power relations between dominant and non-‐dominant groups of people.
This maintenance of power relations along with the stereotypes and the essentialised identities are in line with determinism. Determination appears in Marx’s theory and as Williams (1977: 83) argues, ‘no problem in Marxist cultural theory is more difficult than that of determination’. Determinism relegates the role of human choice and agency to an inferior status. In terms of an essentialist identity, the human subject is not able to re-‐negotiate attributes of his/her identity and therefore, s/he is not in a position to negotiate or alter existing dominant power relations. Therefore, from an essentialist point of view, the subject inherits his/her identity as a set of characteristics along with its boundaries.
On the contrary, critical theory aims to a project of self-‐emancipation from domination that could lead to society’s transformation. Habermas argues that self-‐emancipation could be achieved through self-‐reflection and self-‐ understanding. Both processes entail a constant identity negotiation that contradicts and challenges the stable, fixed and inherited essentialist view of identity.
From a non-‐essentialist view, ‘we should think of identity as a production, which is never complete, always in process’ (Hall, 1990:222). Following this perspective identity is something dynamic in a constant change. Therefore, the study of identity is limited to capture the participants’ reported identity positions at a specific point in time. In this view, the reported perceptions may not be treated as bound or exclusive as they might not be sustained in time.
I would argue that the process of identity negotiation entails a complex set of dimensions such as difference and similarity; the self and the other; and identification.
As Woodward (1997: 1-‐2) stresses:
‘Identity gives us a location in the world and presents the link between us and the society in which we live…Identity marks the ways in which we are the same as others who share that position, and the ways in which we are different from those who do not. [It is] frequently constructed in terms of opposition such as man/woman, black/white’
Woodward’s definition emphasises two important elements that permeate the process of identification: the link between ‘us and the society’, thus between the ‘self’ and the ‘other’; and the importance of similarities/differences. As regards the former, identity could be regarded as the product of interaction between the self and the other who induces, transforms and re/affirms–consciously or unconsciously-‐ the self-‐perceptions that define identity. Therefore, the process of identity formation entails constant interaction between the Self and the Other; the I and You; the Us and Them.
The process that mediates the shift from ‘I to Us’ and from ‘You to Them’ is the marking of differences and similarities. Similar self-‐positions or characteristics function as elements that can foster the process of identification.
As Hall (2000: 16) argues,
‘Identification is constructed on the back of a recognition of some common origin or shared characteristics with another person or group, or with an ideal, and with the natural closure or allegiance established on this foundation’.
In this view, similarities facilitate the process of self-‐categorisation and identification that aims at creating a group of ‘we and us’. This is in line with Althusser’s (1971) ‘interpellation or hailing concept’. According to this concept, it is the interpellation process that helps the recognition of the subject within a particular category or identity. For instance, biological similarities facilitate identification with the gender (e.g. feminine) and in turn result in the construction of discourses such as, that’s me or we women/men. In a similar way, biological differences might also define identity in polarised and oppositional discourses, such as we women-you men.
In summary, identity is constantly constructed and negotiated through interaction between the interpersonal and intrapersonal level; interaction generates the recognition of differences and similarities between the self and the other; these similarities and differences define the self-‐positions and identification with another person, ideal or a group of people. In this view, identity positions do not exist per se. Identities are constructed and informed, produced and consumed within socio-‐cultural contexts. Therefore, there is a close interrelation between culture and identity, what is often found in the literature as cultural identity.