Thinking about Identities

Race and religion are forms of identity

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA

 A sense of personal or shared affiliation
that can provide a sense of belonging;
can also be exclusionary. Our identities
are CULTURALLY CONSTRUCTED.

What is
identity? Examples: race, religion, sexuality,
gender, age
Identities are intersectional: eg. someone
may identify as African-American, middle
age and upper-class woman
Example of a NATURALIZING
DISCOURSE:

We naturalize our familial

identities – we assume that
shared genes/’blood’
automatically means that this
leads to shared social bonds
National
identities • Eg. “Red-blooded American” –
are also presupposes the idea that you
must be BORN in America to
naturalized claim American
on citizenship/identity

occasion:
Nature versus Nurture?
(or biology versus culture)

Are our identities biological (ie. Are we

born with them) or are they the result of
cultural forces?
Margaret Mead, 1928 –
“Coming of Age in Samoa”
 What are some of the ways in
which we communicate the
distinctiveness of identities to
Establishing one another?
difference Identities as EMBODIED -- we
use our bodies (consciously or
unconsciously) to express
identities
Expressing Identity and
Difference:

òLanguage – what identities are

expressed/negotiated via language?
òClothing – example of Homa Hoodfar’s
work on veiling among young Muslim
women – stresses the importance of
ethnography, cultural relativism and of
obtaining diverse perspectives
in fieldwork.
Expressing Identity:
òBurials and
associated grave goods
Body modification
Developing or
strengthening identities…

• How do we reaffirm or strengthen identities and

maintain ties with others?
Marcel Mauss (1872-
1950)
• Nephew of Emile Durkheim (famous sociologist)
• what is important is not the gift but the social
ties/bonds that are formed through obligation
Christmas gifts:
John Carrier argues that commodities are turned into
gifts in these ways:
1) “thought that counts”
2) Frivolous or luxurious gifts
3) Wrapped
4) Shopping to find “right” gift – ritual to convert a
commodity into a gift
Ultimately strengthens or fosters familial or other
bonds.
 Rites of Passage: Term coined in 1908 by Arnold Van
Gennep. Elaborated upon by Victor Turner (1950’s-
1980’s)
How do we Rites of passage are marked by rituals that

mark accompany many changes in status/identity. Rituals

= repetitive, often symbolic events or ceremonies

changes of These can be secular or religious.

identity?
Three stages: Separation, Liminality and
Reincorporation
Separation

• Often involves physical separation or isolation from a particular group

• Can involve symbols of separation (cutting hair, wearing different clothes)
• Think of
military hair cuts:
 A stage of being “betwixt-and-
between” identities

A transitional zone/time

Liminality Eg. think about how students are

“liminal beings”

Develop a sense of COMMUNITAS.

What is communitas? Examples?
Reincorporation
When you are fully
reintegrated into society
with a new status/identity
Race
• Refers to the presumed hereditary characteristics of a
group of people, which often express themselves in
terms of phenotypical differences; often assumption
that there exist behavioral differences
• BUT, race is not biological; it is a culturally constructed
form of identity
• Many people tend to assume that race is an ASCRIBED
status
• But race is a CULTURAL concept, not a biological one,
and therefore, it is important for us to study as
anthropologists
 Ravneet Sidhu
Next
lecture: Graduate Student under direction of Dr.
Hendrik Poinar with McMaster’s Ancient
Guest DNA Centre

speaker, Studies ancient pathogens from

archaeological and other remains
Ravneet Topic: why is race NOT a biological reality?
Sidhu