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Identity: An International
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What Happened to Agency?

Some Observations Concerning
the Postmodern Perspective on
Identity
Charles Levine
Published online: 12 Nov 2009.

To cite this article: Charles Levine (2005) What Happened to Agency? Some
Observations Concerning the Postmodern Perspective on Identity, Identity: An
International Journal of Theory and Research, 5:2, 175-185, DOI: 10.1207/
s1532706xid0502_6

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 IDENTITY: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THEORY AND RESEARCH, 5(2), 175–185
Copyright © 2005, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

What Happened to Agency?

Some Observations Concerning the
Postmodern Perspective on Identity
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Charles Levine
Department of Sociology
University of Western Ontario

I argue that Rattansi and Phoenix’s (1997) postmodern perspective on identity per-
spective is insufficient because it (a) fails to differentiate among types of identity and
(b) does not include a clearly defined role for the impact of the ego’s agentic capabili-
ties on identity formation. I conclude my discussion by offering a revision of their
“key features of rethinking” about identity.

With the recognition of various social structural and cultural changes differentiat-
ing modernity from late modernity, Rattansi and Phoenix (1997) echoed the claims
of theorists such as Giddens (1990, 1991) and Gergen (1991) when they asserted
that the task of acquiring and maintaining coherent identities has become increas-
ingly difficult for youth. The effects of postindustrial economies on employment
opportunities; the growing emphasis on consumption; and, more generally, the in-
creasingly rapid pace of social structural and cultural change combine to create a
social environment within which it becomes increasingly difficult to construct sta-
ble identities. Rattansi and Phoenix illustrated these difficulties with their review
of some of the recent literature addressing the challenges youth face in formulating
and maintaining their gender, class, ethnic, and racial identities. To understand the
difficult circumstances faced by adolescents, the authors argued that we must pay
close attention to the subjective accounts of youth and move beyond current socio-
logical and psychological perspectives by adopting a multidisciplinary, essentially
social psychological perspective.

Requests for reprints should be sent to Charles Levine, Department of Sociology, University of
Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada. N6A 5C2. E-mail: clevine@uwo.ca
 176 LEVINE

In this article, I comment on Rattansi and Phoenix’s (1997) theoretical orienta-

tion. Let me state at the outset that I am in agreement with many of their observa-
tions regarding the circumstances youth face in our late-modern world. I believe,
however, that their theoretical perspective on identity is insufficient because it fails
to consider the construct of agency and because it ignores some important distinc-
tions regarding types of identity that should be acknowledged if we are to have an
adequate conceptual foundation for research in this area.

THE POSTMODERN PERSPECTIVE

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The postmodern literature addressing the constructs of self and identity has been
described as multifaceted and difficult to comprehend as a unified discourse
(Hollinger, 1994). Nevertheless, Gecas and Burke (1995) discerned within this lit-
erature a general orientation that understands the self as “decentered, relational,
contingent, illusory, and lacking any core or essence” (p. 57). Rattansi and Phoenix
(1997) appeared to have a very similar perspective on the matter. The new
multidisciplinary perspective they recommended is informed by several “key fea-
tures of rethinking” about the nature of identity formation in the late-modern
world. What follows is, I hope, a fair paraphrasing of their six most important
claims:

1. Identities are “relational in character”; they are not “self-contained” but have
meaning in relation to what they are not. In this sense, they can be considered
“decentered” and, in practice, unstable (because their meanings are contingent on
and cannot be “completely separated from” [“except by arbitrary … acts of exclu-
sion” (Rattansi & Phoenix, this issue, pp. 103–104)] the meanings of the identities
with which they are in relation).
2. Identities can be imposed by society and culture and are therefore not “es-
sential”; that is, they are not “simply the unfolding of an essence inherent in human
beings regardless of specific institutions and cultures” (Rattansi & Phoenix, this
issue, p. 104).
3. Persons have “multiple identities varying in salience by interactive context”
(Rattansi & Phoenix, this issue, p. 104).
4. Identities are never “finally established”; rather, they are always in the pro-
cess of being constructed and reconstructed.
5. The self is decentered because of unconscious drives, desires, and the like.
The “conscious self is neither in complete control nor in possession of complete
self-knowledge” (Rattansi & Phoenix, this issue, pp. 105–106).
6. The notion of a “core self” understood as “an essential organizer of the sub-
ject’s relationships with the social world” (Rattansi & Phoenix, this issue, p. 104)
must be called into question.
 WHAT HAPPENED TO AGENCY 177

SOME GENERAL OBSERVATIONS

For several reasons, I am tempted to accuse Rattansi and Phoenix (1997) of “rein-
venting the wheel.” First, their recommendation that we pay close attention to the
subjective accounts of adolescents as they form identities is an important research
exercise. Others have been doing this for a long time now, however; it is not a new
research activity (e.g., Kroger, 1989, 1993). I should also point out that Marcia
(1993) operationalized the identity status paradigm from the interpretation of such
“subjective accounts.”
Second, their call for a “new” multidisciplinary social psychology overlooks
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the following: that such a perspective has been undergoing development for the
last 15 years (e.g., Côté, 1993; Côté & Levine, 1987, 1988); that a cursory reading
of Erikson’s (1963, 1964, 1968, 1974, 1975) writings about identity enables one to
easily make the case that Erikson’s work is, in essence, fundamentally social psy-
chological (see also Snarey, Kohlberg, & Noam, 1983); and that even the “psycho-
logically oriented” identity status paradigm is amenable to being integrated within
a broader social psychological perspective (Stephen, Fraser, & Marcia, 1992).
Third, it can be argued that the first four points in the previous list of “key fea-
tures of rethinking” are a function of persons’ participation in interaction and their
reflections on the meanings of interactively mediated identity-relevant symbols.
This being the case, it does not seem too far-fetched to suggest that the theoretical
school of symbolic interaction, especially the Chicago strand of it, has observed
and analyzed these features of identity formation for the last 6 or 7 decades
(Blumer, 1969; Goffman, 1959, 1963; Klapp, 1969; Mead, 1934; Meltzer, 1967;
Strauss, 1959).
I offer one final general observation. It pertains to Rattansi and Phoenix’s
(1997) emphasis on attending to subjective accounts. As I stated previously, I do
agree that this is an important thing to do. I am puzzled by the authors’ views on
this matter, however. Why should our research programs emphasize the impor-
tance of subjective accounts unless we understand them as manifestations of
“agentic personality?” I assume that Rattansi and Phoenix understand them to be
important for this very reason, given the concerns they expressed regarding the
need for a multidisciplinary perspective transcending the conceptual difficulties
posed by the distinction between structure and agency.
Yet, if I am correct in my reasoning on this point, then we confront what appears
to be an inconsistency in their writing stemming from their position that a “core
self” understood as “an essential organizer of the subject’s relations with the social
world” (Rattansi & Phoenix, this issue, p. 104) is no longer operative. If the idea of
a “core self” is to be dismissed, then what is the significance of subjective
accounts? Without theoretical grounding in the construct of “agency,” subjective
accounts become Durkheimian “social facts” or Skinnerian “conditioned verbal-
izations,” and the postmodern perspective recommended becomes a sociologi-
 178 LEVINE

cal/social structural one, with the responses of youth merely echoing the dis-
courses made available to them by their cultural and subcultural milieus. The
multidisciplinary social psychology originally called for recedes into the distance.
Although I am sure this last observation would not sit well with Rattansi and Phoe-
nix, I do not see any way of avoiding it unless they acknowledge the necessity of
making some important revisions to their theoretical orientation.
I offer a brief review of Erikson’s work to recommend certain qualifications and
changes to Rattansi and Phoenix’s (1997) “key features of rethinking” about iden-
tity. My attention in this review is focused on the constructs of identity and agency
because it is a lack of clarification about these two ideas that I find to be the major
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problem with their perspective.

THE ERIKSONIAN PERSPECTIVE

Distinctions Among Self and Identity Constructs

Rattansi and Phoenix (this issue) expressed frustration with identity researchers
when they observed: “Everyone it seems is talking about identities, but it is not
at all clear that they are talking about the same thing” (p. 98). I could not agree
more. This lack of clarity threatens to undermine the potential usefulness of all
of our efforts, and, more recently, my colleague and I (Côté & Levine, 2002) ex-
pressed similar concerns about this matter. A careful reading of Erikson’s (1963,
1964, 1968, 1974, 1975) works, however, provides us with very helpful direction
on how to conceptualize the constructs of identity as well as agency. This venue
permits only a brief review of his and some others’ thoughts about these con-
structs related to identity formation (i.e., Habermas, 1974, 1979; Marcia, 1993;
Mead, 1934).
The following distinctions among the constructs of self, self-concept, social
identity, personal identity, and ego identity can be derived from the works just
cited. With these distinctions in mind, and a brief discussion of the functional rela-
tions among them, I believe that we will have the preliminary theoretical perspec-
tive required to reconstruct Rattansi and Phoenix’s (1997) orientation to the study
of identity.
The construct “self” refers to others’ perceptions of a person’s behavioral reper-
toires. These repertoires can be identified in the enactment of particular roles, in
which case we can speak of a “social self,” or they can be perceived as more
general attributes of the person (e.g., interactive style, various personality and
physical characteristics, etc.), in which case we can speak of a “personal self.”
“Self-concept” refers to a person’s subjective experience of a specific behavioral
repertoire performed in a specific context. Because such experience is tied to and
constructed from symbolic interactions about the behavior, self-concepts are
 WHAT HAPPENED TO AGENCY 179

contextualized meanings about the self. It is useful for our purpose to consider
self-concepts as “first-order cognitive reflections” because of the fact that they are
derived from and have meaning in relation to specific interactive contexts. Finally,
we may note that a person has many self-concepts, as many as the number of dis-
tinguishable behavioral repertoires they reflect on.
The self and the self-concept are not identities. Personal and social identities
can be understood as second-order reflections on the first-order reflective experi-
ences called self-concepts. In other words, these identity domains are composed of
the internalized knowledge of self-concepts and are probably developed in a man-
ner similar to the emergence of Mead’s (1934) “generalized other.” To be aware of
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one’s social and/or personal identity means that one is thinking about and deriving
a generalized, transcontextual understanding of the meanings of one’s personal
and social self-concepts. These identity domains are the major source of the ego’s
sense of spatial and temporal continuity (see the following).
As they develop, social and personal identity constructs “make sense of” or “or-
ganize” a variety of self-concepts that “seem” to belong together. For example, in
reference to social identity, nurses might reflect on their behaviors with a variety of
different patients to organize them in different ways or to perform them differently.
Or a person might become preoccupied with trying to understand why they are po-
lite in some circumstances, hostile in others, and passive in others. They may be
trying to construct, in other words, a coherent sense of who they are “as a person.”
Although thinking in reference to one’s personal and social identities can enable
persons to orient themselves to a variety of specific interactive contexts, it is im-
portant to note that they operate across contexts. Furthermore, these identity do-
mains can be understood as structures of cognition when they are coordinated with
cognitive operations such as perspective taking to function (see, e.g., Berzonsky,
2003; Kroger, 2003; Kunnen & Bosma, 2003; van Hoof & Raaijmakers, 2003, in a
recent special issue of Identity).
In addition to social and personal identity, Erikson was very much concerned
with the identity of the ego. Like the other two identity domains, ego identity also
functions at a “second-order” level of reflection. It emerges as an operative part of
the personality during Erikson’s fifth psychosocial stage when the ego acquires the
ability to reflect on itself, sense itself as a continuous entity in time and social
space, and in so doing give itself the necessary awareness for achieving a sense of
self-control (i.e., achieving a sense of being the author of making choices in life).
In the most general sense, a functioning ego identity enables persons to be aware
that they can think about how and what they think as preparation for making mean-
ingful life choices. More specifically, in reference to identity formation, ego iden-
tity functions as a second-order reflection on personal and social identities. Thus,
if we conceptualize self-concepts as schema-contents for the domains of social and
personal identity, we can go on to conceptualize the domains of social and personal
identity as schema-contents for the domain of the ego’s identity.
 180 LEVINE

The emergence and maintenance of a strong sense of ego identity is not guaran-
teed; achieving an adequate sense of it depends on there having been a reasonable
degree of ego strength development during Erikson’s first four psychosocial stages
as well as on ongoing social support for a person’s social and personal identities.
But the fact that a strong sense of ego identity requires these “support systems”
does not weaken or undermine the proposition that the ego and its identity can be
considered the agentic core of personality structure. A brief discussion about how
these three identity domains function should lend support to this claim concerning
agency.
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Functions of Identity Domains

The functioning of the three identity domains can be understood in reference to the
general task all persons face—the task of maintaining a meaningful sense of the
self in interactions with others. With Mead’s (1934) symbolic interactionist no-
tions of “the act” and “shared meaning” in mind, the following can be proposed re-
garding the ego’s agentic role in the functioning of the identity and self systems. In
the instance of “normal” interaction, where transacted meanings are as expected,
the ego manages its participation in the social world more or less habitually. If
“problems” arise within the parameters of “normal” interaction, they are not inter-
preted as challenges to the legitimacy of the self performing a role or behavior;
rather, they are understood as issues raised concerning specifics of the self’s per-
formance. In circumstances such as this, the employment of first-order reflexive
self-concepts is usually sufficient for the self to readjust behavior (or alter pro-
jected self-images) in line with the expectations of others. In certain instances,
such adjustments could also require the use of the second-order reflections of so-
cial and/or personal identity to maintain interaction. In addition, reflection on the
interaction, most probably at a later time, could result in the social and personal
identity domains assimilating new self-concepts. In any case, the agentic character
of the ego is certainly involved in situations of “normal” interactions, although it is
not sensed very strongly, if at all; this is so because it is not the meaningfulness of
the actor’s personal and social identities that has required adjustment, only certain
aspects of their behavior and their awareness of it.
Not all interactions and life circumstances are benign with respect to challenges
to social and personal identity domains, however. We are all certainly well aware
of this fact with respect to the identity tasks faced by adolescents and, for that mat-
ter, by adults who sometimes experience severe difficulties in adjustment to later
life circumstances. Indeed, the functioning of the personality system changes
when the meaningfulness of the personal and social identity domains is chal-
lenged. Under such conditions, the ego experiences threats to its sense of temporal
and spatial continuity and must sense within itself, through its own identity, a core
 WHAT HAPPENED TO AGENCY 181

being with sufficient competence to initiate the redefinition (reconstruction) of its

personal and/or social identity domains and reestablish their legitimacy in interac-
tion. In writing about Erikson, Habermas (1974) made a similar observation about
the agentic ego, the function of its identity, and persons’ maintaining a sense of
meaningfulness and continuity:

Ego identity proves itself in the ability of the adult to construct new identities in con-
flict situations and to bring these into harmony with older superseded identities so as
to organize himself and his interactions … into a unique life history. (pp. 90–91)
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The previous discussion demonstrates that the ego and its identity can be con-
sidered the agentic core of the personality. This claim has been bolstered with the
idea of “second-order reflexivity,” an ability that enables persons, during and after
Erikson’s identity stage, to differentiate between ego identity on the one hand and
self, self-concepts, and personal and social identities on the other. In addition, the
discussion has also indicated that identities are both context sensitive and context
transcending. Finally, the previous analysis suggests that identities should be un-
derstood as developmental phenomena because their meanings are transformed
throughout the life-cycle as a function of experience in the world and because of
changes they may undergo when the workings of ego identity impact them.

“RETHINKING YOUTH IDENTITY” RECONSIDERED

With the previous review of Erikson’s perspective, I have provided some of the es-
sential features of a developmental social psychology of identity formation. Such a
perspective grounds itself in the notion of agency and, with its distinctions among
identity types and self-concept, is capable of understanding relations among
agency, culture, and social organization. In a manner consistent with the previous
review, I conclude my article with a revised version of Rattansi and Phoenix’s
(1997) six “key features of rethinking” about identity that I paraphrased near the
start of this article. Before doing so, however, several comments are in order.
First, it is obvious that I believe it unreasonable to accept their claim (Key Fea-
ture 6) that the “core self” is no longer operative as an essential organizer of the
participant’s relationships with the social world. With some qualification (see re-
vised version following), however, I do agree that identities are certainly not
forged outside of social and cultural influences (Key Feature 2), that they are “mul-
tiple” (Key Feature 3) and are constructed and reconstructed throughout the
life-cycle (Key Feature 4). In general, these claims are consistent with the
Eriksonian perspective outlined previously.
 182 LEVINE

Rattansi and Phoenix (this issue) also claimed that, because of the unconscious,
the self is decentered, by which they meant it “is never in complete control nor in pos-
session of complete self-knowledge” (p. 106) and often functions in ways that are at
variance with the “rational expectations” of the self as well as others (Key Feature 5).
To my way of thinking, this claim does not undermine the significance that I have at-
tributed to the agentic ego. Quite the contrary! It describes what is, for me, a universal
condition stimulating human development—namely, the fundamental role played
by interaction in stimulating the identity of the ego to construct and reconstruct so-
cial and personal identities in meaningful ways, with the “acid test” of
“meaningfulness” being successful adaptation to ongoing social involvement. Let
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me express Rattansi and Phoenix’s observation in another way: We believe we have

an unconscious, that we never completely know ourselves, when others and we at-
tribute our unexpected behaviors to this fact, during and after interaction (Mills,
1940). After all, is there any other way to detect and explain what we sense as uncon-
scious motives or needs except by either talking with ourselves and/or talking with
others about our lives and ourselves? In other words, identity formation can be un-
derstood as a life-long process in which the ego, with its identity, “discursively forms
its will” (Habermas, 1974) by (re)centering its “decentered selves.” Although he cer-
tainly never stated it this way, I believe Erikson would accept this description of hu-
man development as being quite compatible with his own.
My final comment concerns Rattansi and Phoenix’s (this issue) assertion that
identities are also “decentered” because they are “relational in character” (Key
Feature 1). In this context, the authors’ main point seems to be that identities are
unstable because they only have meaning in relation to what they are not and ulti-
mately cannot be “centered” “except by arbitrary … acts of exclusion” (pp.
103–104). I am willing to accept this observation as linguistically and semantically
“true.” The significance of it appears to be the following: that persons are deceiv-
ing themselves when they think they know who they are because, in the end, the
meanings of their identities can never be fully differentiated from the meanings of
other identities. With some qualification, I think that this observation is fully com-
patible with the perspective that I have outlined previously.
When we recall the distinctions made among identity types and first and second
orders of reflexivity, we can appropriately qualify the assertion that identities are
relational: They are and they are not! In reference to my earlier example of the
nursing profession, it is the case that the internalized contents of this social identity
(self-concepts), and even the higher order classification of these contents (i.e., the
identity of “nurse” per se), originate in interaction and can be considered
“relationally unstable.” The same could be said for the identity contents of per-
sonal identity. What is not “relational,” however, is the general awareness that one
has a social and personal identity and that the identity of the ego enables one to
think about these identity domains.
 WHAT HAPPENED TO AGENCY 183

CONCLUSION

I can now present my “revised version” of Rattansi and Phoenix’s (1997) “key fea-
tures” of rethinking about identity. My revisions are italicized.

1. The internalized contents of identities are “relational in character”; they

are not “self-contained” but have meaning in relation to what they are not. In this
sense, they can be considered “decentered” and, in practice, unstable (because
their meanings are contingent on and cannot be “completely separated from”
[“except by arbitrary … acts of exclusion” (Rattansi & Phoenix, this issue, pp.
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103–104)] the meanings of the identities with which they are in relation). A sub-
jective awareness of such instability can be the stimulus for changing one’s iden-
tities.
2. Roles can be imposed by society and culture and therefore the contents of
identity domains are not “essential.” This being the case, it is incorrect to under-
stand identity formation as being “simply the unfolding of an essence inherent in
human beings regardless of specific institutions and cultures” (Rattansi & Phoe-
nix, this issue, p. 104).
3. Persons have “multiple social and personal identities that can vary in sa-
lience by interactive context” (Rattansi & Phoenix, this issue, p. 104).
4. Identity formation is a life-long process and thus, identities are never “fi-
nally established”; rather, they are always in the process of being constructed and
reconstructed.
5. Because of unconscious drives, desires, and the like, persons can be consid-
ered “decentered” in the sense that they lack total self-control and complete
self-knowledge. Through interaction, they construct and reconstruct their per-
sonal and social identities to derive a better sense of meaning in life and to more
successfully adapt to life with others.
6. The ego and its identity can be understood as “the essential organizers of the
subject’s relations with the social world” (Rattansi & Phoenix, this issue, p. 104).

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