1 Introduction: Who Needs ‘Identity’? Stuart Hall “Thore has beens veritable discursive explosion in recent yeors aroun the concept of dently, at the same moment as it has been subjected to caching critique, How is this paradoxical development tobe explained? ‘And where does leave us with respect io the concep? The deconatuc ton hasbeen conducted withina vanetyof disciplinary areas alla them, inone way or another caitical a the notion ofan integral, orginary and Unified identity. Theentigue ofthe self-sustaining subject at the centre of pust-Cartesian westem metaphysis has Been’ comprehensively” ad anced in philosophy. The question of subjectivity and is nconscis processes of formation has been developed within the discourse of a Peschoonaltcally influence feminism ad cutsea critism, The end Fesly performative self has been advanced in celebratory varlants of postmodernism. Within the anthessentiliseriique of ethnic, rail and rational conceptions of cultural entity and the pics of location some adventurous theoretical conceptions have beer sketched in thee mst ‘rounded forms. What, then, is the need fora further debate about ‘lentiy? Who needs There are two ways of responding to the question, The fist i to serve something distinctive about the deconstractive critique to hich ‘many of these exsentaist concepts have been subjected, Unlike those form of eitgue which aim te supplant inadequate concepts with ‘truer nes, or which aspire ta the production of postive knowledge, the Mleconstructive approach pus key concepts “under erase’. This ne dleates that they are no longer serviceable ‘good to think wilh’ —in thee onginary and unreconstracted form. Bat since they have not been Superseded dalctialy, and there are no other, enti iferent ‘concepts with which {0 replace them, there is nothing to do but to continue to think with them — albeit now in their delotalized or dleconstracted forms, and no longer operating within the paradigm in ‘which they were originally generated (ef. Hal, 1995). The line which ‘ances them, paradoxically, permits them to g9 on being read. Derrida has described this approach as thinking atthe im, as thinking in the interval, a sort of double wsiting, By means of ths double, and precisely Stratified, dislodged and disldging weil, we must also mark the2 Questions Calan hei Ine tse neo, whi igs hh wi hha he sree ecmergence of new concep a concep that can no longer be ‘SePnener cod be-ned inthe previous reyithe (Deri 1 ‘dune such a concept» opeaing "under erase the interval ee evo and emergence an dea which cannot te thovgan the yo, bet nthout which estan key questions cannot be tho at at. second kindof asiver requires sta note where in elation to eat set fblen does the edu of the concep erty, emerge? i he ae eres nt eta othe ton of ae) an fas By politics T mean tut the sigicaner in modern forms & Pela maement of eign Went spol elatonship toa rec avenue the mares ius and isbn Filth ave charetevscaly fected ll contemporary forms entity weal lageny”Trexprese noses saver Ceti 1 2 Pte and ransoren notion of the subject oki 2 the einer of sca practice, oto estore an approach which paces eee punta ew atthe eigino a hstcty-which, st eas TeoyaRendentl eonscowsnens’ (rascal 1970, px). agree eh Few tat vat we requ ere nt hey of he kreing reget utethera theory efdscrsve practi’ However, ehevethat iin dcceningrequtes-asthe evplstionolFowel workcletiy CRN Ssat an abandonment or abolition of the subject but a snore eptlvaton = thinking tn is neve, displaced or decented ‘att within he paraig Hsems tobe the attempt to rear Fee wadonp bewecen subjects and discursive practices that the {foeston af deni recurs otter, fone prefer stress the press aU Sbjetteaton to discursive practices, andthe pics of excloson ‘Fiscal such subjectication opps to ena the question of Ment. A Euiation trast tobe ane ofthe at welder concep tion ss tehy ae though paterable to, hen” seland certain altuorame against the concen diliies which have beset the iscsi drawing meanings rom both the discursive and the psych sativa repertoire tout bing line To ither This seman ks in Zomple to wavavel ere, bul is seul af Teast to estab (Sheance tothe tank hand indicate. In common sense language {enfcatn iecontrcted on theback of ecogritin of sume corenon itp or shared characteristics with anather person a group, wih an {HEI snd with the ntural cosas of solidity and abelance estabished ‘sntisfoundation eta wh the natura ofthis defn the cursive approach seestdentcaion asa construction, aprocess newer “Simpete aay proces It isnot determined inthe sense that Sirays be wen’ or test, sustained or abandoned. Though not SSthou hs determinate conditions of existence, ncn, the rate rap etntone rears ete stan tentcaton Fut end Iutnatcton: Wy Nios Mette? . conditional lage in contingency. Once secured it docs not obliterate Aiference. The tfal merging. seggess 1S, in et, a fanasy of incorporation. (Ereud always spoke of itn relation to ‘consuming the fother os we shall seen a moment.) Kdentication i, then, a process of trficulation suturing, an overdetermination nota subsumption, There {ealwaye too much’ or too litle ~an over-determination of lack, but rnevera proper fit, atta Likeall sigetyng practices, tis subject tothe ‘play’ af irae Ie obeys the logic of morethar-ane, And since as 2 Process it operates across difference, it entails discursive work, the binding and marking symbolic boundaries, the production o frontier effects” It rogoires what is let outside, as constitutive outside, 10 ‘consolidate the proces ‘rom its psychoanalytic usage, the concept of identification inherits a rich semantic legacy. Feud calls ithe earliest expression of an emotions tie with another pera’ (Feud, 1211001) in the context the Oris ‘ompex, however, takes the parental figures as both love-jects a ‘objets of sivalry, thereby insesting ambivalence Int the very centre of the process. “Identification fs in fet, ambivalent from the very tae (05217191 134). ln’Mourning and Melancholastisi that which binds fone toan object tht exits, but that which binds one #0 an abandoned tbjectchoie. es, in the frst instance, a moulding after the other which compensates forte loss ofthe libilnal pleasures primal narcissist isgrounded in fantasy, in projection and idealization, Its ubjectsa ikely tole the one thats hated asthe one that i adored and as often taken tack into the unconscious self ax "aking ane ost of oneself Is in ‘elation to identification that Freud elaborated the crite distinction tetween ‘being’ and having’ the ther Tebehaves likes derivative ofthe frst, oral phase of organization of he bi, in which the objec that we long fori assimilated by eating and is in that way anmiilated as such {QB211091: 135). Tdentifcations wewed as a whole’ Laplanche and Pontalis (1945) note ‘are in no way a coherent elational system. Demands ‘oevet within an agency Hke the superego, for instance, which are Aiverse conflicting and disorderly. Similvl, the egoideal is composed ofidenicaions with cultural udeals that are not necessarily harmonious! (@.208) ‘am not suggesting that all these connotations should be imported wholesale and without translation Into our thinking around “dentty”, bal they are cited toindiate the nvel pertains of meaning wth which the term is now being inflected. The concept of kenlty deployed here is therelorenot an essentalist, but strategie and positional ne, That isto s3y, directly contrary to what appears tobe its setled semantic cree, this concept of identity does m0 signal that slable core of the self tnfolding from beginning to end through all the vicistudes of history without change; the it of the self which remains awaysaleeady the Sm’ ential to eel arose time, Nor if we asl thee Ingconception tothe stage of cultural entity“ iet tat cllective or rue4 Qs of Calan dente ‘self hing inside the many ther, more superficial wr artificially imposed Seelvee” which @ people with a shared history and ancestry hold in common” (Hall, 1990) and sshich can sabilve, fx or guarantee an Unchanging “oneness or cultural belongingness underyingall the ther “upentical differences, Itaccepts that ientibes are never unified and, 9 Inte modera times, increasingly fragmented and fractured: never singlar but multiply constricted across different, oflenintersectingand antagom: inti, discourses, praclices and positions, They are subjet to radial Fistorcizaton, and are constantly in the process of change and trans formation, We need to situate the debates about identity within al those Fistorclly specie developments and practices whichhave disturbed the relatively sell’ characerof many populations and cultures, above all, in relation to the processes of globalization, which [would argue are ‘coterminous with moderity (Hal, 1996) and the processes of forced and ies" migration which have become a global phenomenoa othe so-called ‘postcolonial word, Though the seem to invoke an origin na historial fost with which they contin correspond, actualy identities are about ‘Questions of using the resources of history, language and cltare i the Drocessof becoming rather than being: not "who we ae’ oF ‘where we ‘ime from, so much as what we might Become, how we have been represented and how that beats on fa we might represent ourselves, Tents ae therefore constituted within, ot outsule representation “They tlae to the invention of tadtion as much as ko tition isl which they oblige us Io read not as an endless reiteration but a5 the ‘hanging same’ (iro, 1994) not the so-called retuen to roots but 2 coming to-terms-with our routes”. Tey arise from the narrativization of ‘the sel, but the necessarily Rtonal nature ofthis proces in no way ‘undermines its discursive, material or political elfectvy, even if the belongingnes, the suturinginto the story’ through which dentiisarise is, pally, in the imaginary (as well asthe symbolic) and therefore, always, parly constructed in fantasy, or atleast within a fantasmatic fel Precisely because identities are constructed within, not outside, discourse, we need to understand them as produced in pectic historical “and institutional tes within speci discursive formations and practices, byspecificenuneciative strategies. Moreover, they emerge within the play ‘of specific modalities of power, and thus are more the product of the mmarkingo' diferenceand exclusion than they are the sign ofan identical haturlly-conatitted unity an lent ints radtionsl meaning (at is anal inclusive sameness, seamless, without internal differentiation). ‘Above all, and directly contrary to the form in which they are constantly invoked, identities are constructed through, not outside, Aiference. This entails the radically disturbing recognition that tis ony through the relation tothe Other, the elation to whatitis no to precisely what it lack, €0owhat has been called its conte oe that the ‘positive’ meaning of any term — and thus is "adeniy” ~ can be rtrd: Wh Ns ett? 5 constructed (Detrida, 1981; Laclay, 190, Buller, 1993). Throughout their ‘reer, identities can function as points of identification an attachment oly bras of thee capacity to exclude, to leave at, to render outside’ abjectel Every ident has a its margin’, am excess, something more The unity, the internal homogeneity, which the term idently treats 9s foundational isnot a natural, but 9 constructed form of elasure, every identity naming as is necessary, even i silenced and unspoken other, that which i Tack’. Laclu (1990) argues powerfully and persuasively ‘thatthe constitution ofa socal identity isan act of power since, 1. amobjeivty managet partly af seis ony by repressingthat thich tnentens a Derg has Shown how am tdnty sconslaton aes sedonesiudngsethingandestishinga ite rary bene ie two resultant poles maniwoman, ete What spc fete sea er these he on anaconda he senate Ist Wisthesome withthe blakcwiiereltorehip, inwhiheehie eter, |Steuivale’ to human being, "oman std tee’ ne thine fe ‘ypisemin connote woman sad hi a So the ‘nities’ which identities preclaim are, in fac, constructed within the play of poveer and exclusion, and ae the sul, not of a natural and inevitable or primordial totality but of the naturalized, overdetermined process ‘closure’ (Bhabha, 194, Fal, 1983). TE ‘entities’ can only be read against the grain ~ that i to say, specifically ot asthat which fixes the play oflifetence ina point of og ‘nd sablty, but as that which is constructed in or through diane at is constantly destabilized by what it leaves out, then how can we lnderstand is meaning and how ean we theorize its emergence? Aviat Brah (1992149), in her important arte on “Difference, diversity and differentiation’, raises an important series of questions which these new ways conceptualizing identity have pose Fanon notwithstanding, much works yet be undertaken on the subject of how the rcalized “oer. consti sn the psychi demain How 2 Postcolonial gendered and rade subject fo be analy Does the ‘rwiegingor sexual ifference and ary child in peyehoanalys ie "planar valve in helping oso understand the poy mensions ace Phenamern suchas racuin# How do the synbuie cede’ andthe see ret {ulate Inthe formation ofthe subject? In ather words how i he Bak Between social and payee realty tte teed (992) What folowsisanattempt to begin to respond tothiscrtcallut roubling setof questions In some recent work on this topic, Ihave made an appropriation of the term identity oehich is certainly not widely shared and may nat be ell understood. use identi’ to reer to the meeting point, the point of suture, between on the one had the discourses ad prectces which attempt to “interpelate, speak to us or hail us in place as the socal subjects of particular discourses, and an the ether hand, the proceses