Identity Politics

Audrey Kobayashi, Department of Geography, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada

© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Glossary
Identity A set of socially constructed traits around which members of a group organize a sense of belonging.
Identity politics The political mobilization of a group to achieve recognition and redress of historical oppression on the basis
of group identity.
Irredentism A movement on the part of the nation-state to incorporate within its boundaries all territory to which it has once
held claim, often involving the attempt to incorporate minority ethnocultural groups who claim a separate national identity.
Multiculturalism State recognition of group identities as a basis for plural, as opposed to monocultural, societies.
Politics of difference A contested term that for rights-seeking groups refers to political movements that use recognition of
shared historical experiences as a basis for social recognition; conversely, assimilationists view the politics of difference as the
basis for separatism.
Primordialism A belief that cultural traits/practices that are believed to constitute identity are given prior to historical/social
action; therefore individuals born into a particular group already hold those traits.

The ideologically laden term “identity politics” refers to social movements to gain recognition of historically oppressed ethnocul-
tural or racialized groups. Some theorists also refer to such movements as a “politics of difference.” Geographers’ interest in identity
politics began with the development of “radical” geography during the 1960s, at the height of the American Civil Rights Movement.
Radical geography was (and is) mainly a critique of established theories of the state and economy; but William Bunge took radical
geography to the streets by initiating the Detroit Geographical Expedition in collaboration with local organizers from the African-
American community. Although the collaboration lasted only about a year, it focused attention on the possibilities for geographers
to work with local activists in advocating for social change. Several similar projects developed throughout the United States and
Canada, although they tended to be much more strongly focused on issues of antipoverty movements and activism around the defi-
nition of public space (both important) than on questions of racial and ethnocultural equality. Despite the strong potential of such
early work, radical-geography approaches influenced by structural Marxism did not materialize into widespread analysis or involve-
ment at the local scale; and humanistic geographers of the 1970s and 1980s tended to emphasize either individual experience or the
creation of symbolic cultural landscapes. Neither approach made issues of identity politics a priority, despite the extremely impor-
tant place of identity politics in the contemporary world. Over the past two decades, however, there has been renewed and enthu-
siastic interest both for understanding identity politics, and for encouraging research and academic activism in local communities.

The Problem of Essentialism

Any form of identity politicsdor, for that matter, any political movementdis of course a historical, social construction. Most
groups who assert rights on the basis of identity politics, however, essentialize their identities as a basis for making political
claims. On the one hand, especially for geographers who make common cause with communities and undertake social action
research, essentialism may present some problems that move from the realm of theory/ontology to the ways in which people
actually present themselves in public. On the other hand, however, overcoming essentialism can be a way of envisioning new
possibilities for the future. Walking the line between these two conceptual places definitely presents some research challenges,
especially when essentialized identities (white nationalism, for instance) present occasions of oppression of Others. As the issues
discussed below illustrate, however, recent geographical research has just such a balance as a basis for understanding identity poli-
tics and social change.

The Development of Politics of Identity Since the Civil Rights Movement

The politics of identity was an issue of major public concern through the 1970s and 1980s, particularly in white settler societies such
as Canada and the United States. These decades saw the emergence of movements to obtain redress for historical oppression across
a huge range of issues mobilized using many political positions and strategies, but they fall into two major categories: those that
seek a radical separation from the dominant society, and those that seek recognition within dominant society. The first group aims
to establish alternate forms of nationalism, while the second appeals to a range of meanings of multiculturalism.

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The Politics of Radical Separatism

Radical separatism depends on a sense of identity that is fundamentally irreconcilable with the larger nation. While such
movements vary (both by group and historically) over the degree of autonomy sought and in the extent to which they are
willing to use violence when other means are unsuccessful, they have in common a belief that the only means of overcoming
oppression is removal from the hegemony of the oppressor. They occur in historical situations of colonialism, territorial
annexation, or wholesale movements of peoples (e.g., through slavery). They also vary in the extent to which separatism is
a means to an end or an end in itself, and in the extent to which separatism involves territorial claims. The geographical,
spatial context for radical separatist movements, therefore, is crucial to an understanding of the possibilities for addressing
their claims.
The geography of radical separatism based on territorial claims is extremely mutable and varied. Some historic movements, such
as Quebecois separatism or republicanism in Northern Ireland, have shifted over time from the blunt politics of opposition to
a practice of transformation from within. While no less adamant in their claims to national identity, such groups have expanded
their strategic actions to use more conventional political means, such as party politics, to achieve their ends. Quebecois separatists,
for example, refer to the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s as the transformation to a secular nationalist society in which
institution buildingdlanguage, cultural practices, the arts, the emergence of a national political party is the Bloc quebecoisdis the
basis for cultural autonomy within Quebec borders.
Such territorially based identities are seldom hegemonic, however, and are often internally contested. For example, in the case of
Basque groups in Spain, identity-based institution building is the basis for an autonomous region in which a number of Basque
political groups now compete for power. The Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), however, shuns those institutions, still espouses radical
separation, and is willing to use violence to achieve it. In other regions, such as the former Yugoslavia, politics of identity taken to
their furthest ends resulted in widespread violence and radical separation and dismantling of a former national polity. There are
many other examples throughout the globedthe Kurds in Iraq and Turkey, the Tamils in Sri Lanka, Palestinians in Israel, and Indig-
enous groups in both developed and lesser developed nation-statesdwhere ongoing violence defines attempts by historically
oppressed groups to establish separatist states based on ethnocultural identity, and where official state violence to suppress such
movements takes a range of irredentist practices, from genocide and ethnic cleansing to the imposition of strict policing regimes
and the denial of human rights.
Geographers have struggled to develop adequate theories for understanding the politics of identity around radical sepa-
ratism, especially in situations of violence. Historical materialist accounts of the conditions of oppression under which sepa-
ratist movements have arisen can explain the desperation of nationalist groups in the face of brutal colonial practices and
ongoing denial of the most fundamental human rights (which have occurred to one degree or another in all of the cases cited
above). They can also explain the liberating power of resistance to oppression, whether through violence or through more
conventional political strategies. But they do not necessarily condone violence as a means of liberation. Recent attempts
to assess the most entrenched and violent irredentisms, by geographers such as David Delaney, Derek Gregory, and David
Harvey, have stressed the importance of going beyond territorial oppression, of recognizing the extent to which contemporary
identity-based territories are implicated in global formations of capital, global redistribution of resources, and global political
coalitions, and of reimagining the meaning of the nation in light of colonial and other hegemonic forms of domination.
While several geographers have cautioned about the danger of romanticizing separatist groups “just because” they have occu-
pied a historic position of marginality, we still face the question of whether it is a radical politics of identity (whether of
the dominant or subordinate group), or only a “violent” politics of identity that needs to be overcome in situations of
conflict.
Not all forms of radical identity politics are territorially based. A major example is that of the Black Panthers, who emerged
in the 1960s to advocate for African Americans’ right to form their own destiny in order to overcome poverty and gain access to
education, health, and other basic needs. The movement failed within a decade due, among other things, to the death or
imprisonment of its leaders, internal ideological conflicts, and the actions of law enforcement to restrain its activities. Recent
resurgence of interest in the Black Panther movement on the part of academics, including geographers, raises questions about
the possibility for nonterritorial nationalist movements to establish a sense of collective identity sufficient to effect change, and
about the logistics of scale in organizing identity-based claims when traditional notions of territory are not the basis for mobi-
lization. Strategies for political organization, as well as the rationale for claiming human rights, change dramatically when not
territorially based.
The memory of the Black Panthers is also linked to emerging forms of radical identity claims. In the United States, several
social movement groups, seeing a failure over the past four decades to improve the position of African Americans, are claim-
ing a revival of the Black Panther organization premised on peaceful mechanisms for social change. Moreover, similar claims,
especially among Islamicist movements, are increasingly diasporic, transnational, and global against the global gathering of
strength of Islamophobia, which is also often violent. These movements are by and large premised on a concept of peaceful
activism, although some are willing to resort to violence. Diasporic identity politics are considerably more ideologically varied
than are movements that lay claim to specific territories. Paradoxically, they are both more potentially powerful because of
their global scale, and more difficult to organize because of their spatial diffusion. Surely, there has never been a more impor-
tant or compelling challenge to political geographers than to understand the implications of emerging diasporic identity
politics.
 Identity Politics 153

Identity Politics in a Context of Multiculturalism

Although the line between radical separation and multiculturalism is often not clear or straight, identity politics set within
a pluralist, or multicultural, context seek recognition of human rights rather than separation. Although they are usually much
less likely to occur in violent situations, this does not mean that they are any less fervently sought, or that the acts of oppression
against which they seek redress are any less oppressive. They include, for example, most of the American Civil Rights Movement,
including the movement for slavery compensation, the movements of Japanese Americans and Japanese Canadians for redress
for human rights abuses during the 1940s, organizations against Islamophobia, organizations of urban Indigenous peoples, and
struggles for the rights of Latino/Latina migrant workers. In almost every case they occur against a historic background of colo-
nialism that involved the migration of people to places where they could not exercise territorial claims. Most racialized minorities
in advanced industrial countries, for example, first arrived (and continue to arrive) in those countries as enslaved, indentured, or
very cheap labor. It is ironic that their presence has created the conditions of pluralism that have led many states to adopt policies
of multiculturalism. Moreover, nonterritorial claims of (dis)placed cultural minorities are often set against the territorial claims of
nationalist or Indigenous communities, especially in the white settler societies such as the United States, Canada, Australia, and
New Zealand. The challenge of reconciling the liberal notion of individual multicultural rights with group rights in such settings
is one that has yet to be met by policymakers, political philosophers, or social movement groups themselves.
As state policy, the idea of multiculturalism first emerged in Canada in the 1960s and became official government policy in that
country in 1971. Australia followed suit in 1973, and several European states, such as Sweden and the Netherlands, subsequently
adopted similar state policies. The concept is a liberal democratic one of encouraging individual identity as a member of a particular
ethnocultural group, and in advancing public institutions to foster equality. Many policymakers have advocated multiculturalism as
a means of overcoming the practice of assimilation, particularly of recently arrived immigrant groups, but without thereby
hindering the ability of such groups to achieve full and equitable social participation. Critics of multiculturalism have been less
sanguine over the power of multiculturalism to achieve social cohesion, but for very different reasons.
Critics have generally taken one of two polarized positions. The illiberal, monoculturalist position holds that nations should
maintain a dominant cultural identity to which Others should adapt or assimilate. For them, identity politics around multicultur-
alism are disparaged as addressing the needs of “special interests,” rather than those of the dominant society. Such critics also fear
that regimes of ascriptive primordialism on the part of ethnocultural groups will entrench difference and encourage fundamen-
talism, extremism, and antimodernism. They maintain that only assimilation to a dominant culture will overcome primordialism.
This position is currently gaining strength in a number of advanced industrial countries of Europe and North America.
The contrary view opposes multiculturalism on the grounds that it is by definition separatist and as such prevents marginalized
groups from accessing full equality rights enjoyed by members of the dominant group. These critics fear that group identities will be
“Balkanized” in relation to the dominant group. They are skeptical of the willingness or ability of the state to address any but the
most general of claims to equal recognition, but they also caution against the coercive power of the group to enforce a singular
identity at the expense of other facets of subject positioning such as gender, gender identity, or class.
Both positions, however, rely on an essentialized understanding of ethnocultural identity as Other, and often depict culture as
static, immobile, and necessarily conservative. Ethnocultural groups themselves have also resorted to essentialized concepts of
identitydindeed, whence the term “identity politics”din their struggles to attain social justice through recognition. Many writers
have pointed out the paradox of identity politics: that making claims based on historical injustice reinscribes the state of difference
that was the original basis of injustice, thus preparing the ground for further oppression. Using the liberal democratic concept of
multiculturalism as a basis for equality, therefore, runs the risk of reproducing this fundamental tension between identity and
difference in irreconcilable ways.
Nowhere is this tension more pronounced than in contemporary debates over the expression of Muslim identity now occurring
in various ways throughout traditionally non-Islamic world. In some advanced capitalist countries such as France and the Nether-
lands, secular multiculturalism has provided the ironic and somewhat disingenuous rationale for curtailing certain public Islamic
expressions, such as female dress. In other places, such as Canada and Australia, while there has been no official pulling back of the
concept of multiculturalism, Muslim identity is under increasing public attack, and discourses of ascriptive premordialism are
increasingly dominant. In the province of Quebec, for example, where territorial identity claims to cultural separatism are often
at loggerheads with claims for multicultural recognition on the part of racialized and religious minorities, a public commission
on religious accommodation tried to tread between these twodfor most people, unacceptabledpositions. The result of many years
of debate has been to ban the wearing of religious accoutrements (e.g., a hijab) in certain public places and jobs. Public discourse
around accommodation overwhelmingly asserts a dominant, normative view of Quebecois culture, with debate occurring over how
far the dominant group is willing to go to accommodate difference.
Nonetheless, ethnocultural mobilization has often used the concept of multiculturalism to transcend, rather than reinforce,
notions of cultural separation, and such movements can involve considerable negotiation of the terms of cultural identification
within groups. Most diasporic groups, within which there inevitably operate a range of political views, are themselves sites of lively
debate over what their collective identity consists of, over the meaning of cultural change that is often accelerated by the very expe-
rience of diasporic movement, and over the means by which human rights, including the rights of women, can be achieved in a wide
variety of national contexts.
In many Western countries, the minority groups asserting their own identity have pushed for human rights that affect all citizens.
In some cases, coalitions of minority group movements that may at other times seemed odd partners have advocated for social
154 Identity Politics

change and, in so doing, have established a basis for reimagining multicultural societies in which ethnocultural identities are not
silos of isolation, but expressions of vibrant social interaction.
One example of recent trends is the increasing incidence of transnationalism. Whereas transnationalism as a set of practices that
retain links between one or more diasporic generations and a country of origin is by no means a new phenomenon, it is widely
believed that in the context of globalization, including global communication and transportation, globalized consumption prac-
tices, and related increases in international migration, ongoing interactions between migrants and their places of origin have
become stronger since the latter part of the 20th Century. There is now a burgeoning literature on the topic that includes a variety
of transnational forms among temporary labor migrants, permanent settlers, and subsequent generations. These connections are
culturally, demographically, economically, and politically complex. But what they show in part is that the complexities of negoti-
ating individual and family lives across transnational fields are strongly connected to those of negotiating conditions of citizenship.
Contemporary transnationals, many of whom are also very cosmopolitan, have the capacity to participate in social movements that
address issues of human rights and social identity and, further, the conception of human rights and social identity is subject to
considerable change within the fluid social dynamics of transnationalism, transcending static or primordial notions of citizenship
rights.
The increasing practice of holding dual or multiple citizenships also affects the ways in which social identities are transformed
and emphasizes the extent to which questions of citizenship have become globalized. For example, when violence erupted in Leb-
anon in 2006, many dual nationals from countries such as Canada and Australia that recognize multiple citizenships were assisted
by their governments to evacuate. The evacuations sparked fierce debates in a number of countries about the value of dual citizen-
ship, the rights of citizens, loyalty to more than one national identity, and the obligations of states to serve the needs of their citizens
outside national borders. These debates bring out many geographical issues, not only about the changing relationship between
cultural/political identities and territory, but also about the ways in which changing ways of being citizens can transcend older
notions of multiculturalism. Many dual nationals feel that their allegiance to both countries is strengthened by an expanded concept
of place of residence, and that their experiences contribute to a rich cultural diversity in both places, especially when children born
with rights to more than one citizenship exercise those rights through their own international activities. Dual citizenship, and atten-
dant transnational activities, thus works to counteract cultural primordialism.
Such citizens are increasingly involved in social movements that transcend national borders. Transnational social movements
(TSMs) have been a major feature of globalization, and transnational identity politics are no exception. Diasporic cultural groups,
more than ever, connected by electronic communication as well as the ability to move with greater ease between international desti-
nations, address issues of citizenship at a number of scales, linking national and international citizenship issues. Such social move-
ments organized around identity politics range from movements to bring peace to areas torn by violent conflict, to democratic
movements to shift autocratic state apparatuses or to protect minority groups subject to state oppression, to smaller-scale projects
that include international adoption programs or participatory development projects.
Critics will point out that transnational identity politics also include groups mobilized to effect violence, especially since 11
September 2001. It is important to recognize that the power to affect all kinds of social outcomes transcends borders. The geography
of social movements is such that the political outcomes are contingent, and very much rooted in the historical conditions that
produce in some cases violence and in others positive social change. The suppression of minority groups is also ongoing and
involves the mobilization of state apparatuses capable of delivering widespread violence. Furthermore, while armed violence is
only one form of suppressing social movements, the violence of normative ideologies, in the form of racialized and colonial ideas
and practices, is a major aspect of the politics of difference. We need to understand, therefore, not only the variety of ways in which
social movements work in plural societies, but also the variety of ways in which states address their concerns.

Overcoming the Paradox: Imagining Identity Politics Beyond Identity

Geographers began to direct their interests toward questions of identity politics during the early 1990s through a renewed interest in
studying the geography of racism through a poststructural lens. While notions of a biological basis to the concept of “race,” and
primordial definitions of culture, have been increasingly discredited, poststructuralism allows an understanding of the ways in
which essentialist beliefs are constructed, or imagined, through the deployment of dominant discourses that normalize the domi-
nant (white) body and invest power in white cultural formations. All identities are thus already constructed through a historical
process such as racialization.
Social constructionism portrays the ontologically unstable status of social categories, but it does not in itself provide insight on
the “politics” of recognition. Many geographers and other scholars are anxious to escape their theoretical understanding of social
construction, and to take up their own hammers and nails to help build new social formations. To do so requires both a vision of
future possibilities for overcoming oppression, and a strong commitment to mesh their political and theoretical insights in ways
that make such a difference.
The study of identity politics in different forms and in different parts of the world has led geographers to insights about under-
standing political struggles. The politics of identity almost always originate in conditions of colonialism or territorial conquest, and
involve the historic displacement of minorities or the subjugation of minorities in place. Contemporary attempts to overcome
historic oppression, whether waged through violent means or through accommodationist practices, such as multiculturalism,
invariably run the paradoxical risk of reinscribing difference and the identity of the irremediable other.
 Identity Politics 155

Overcoming essentialism is not simply an academic exercise. That is, it is not only essentialism as a theoretically inadequatedand
inaccuratedexplanatory framework that is troubling; it is the political, ideological use of essentialism to mobilize discourses of
domination. It is about the imagination of sameness and difference, and about the lengths that human beings are willing to go to
reinforce such normative visions. Recently, geographers and others have begun to theorize ways of reimagining human relations
so that dominant groups and minority groups alike can get past the trap of essentialized thinking.
By doing so, they also theorize the extent to which social change is possible. But if the refutation of essentialism is old news
academically, it is certainly very much a part of political movements, not only because ideas are slow to change but also because
certain ideas retain huge, indeed hegemonic, political power. It is, above all, against such hegemonic power that identity politics
have emerged and social movements of all sorts have resisted.

See Also: Activism; Black Geographies; Cosmopolitanism; Critical Theory and Human Geography; Cultural Politics; Ethnic Conflict; Multiculturalism;
Nationalism; Race/Ethnicity; Racism and Antiracism; Resistance; Social Movements.

Further Reading

Cohen, R., 1998. Transnational Social Movements: An Assessment. Transnational Communities Research Programme, Oxford. Working Paper 98–10. http://www.transcomm.ox.
ac.uk/working%20papers/cohen.pdf.
Fossam, J.E., n.d. Identity-Politics in the European Union. ARENA Working Papers 01/17. http://www.arena.uio.no/publications/wp01_17.htm.
Harvey, D., 1996. Justice, Nature, and the Geography of Difference. Blackwell, Malden, MA.
Heyes, C., 2007. Identity Politics. In: Zalta, E.N. (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Winter 2007 ed. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2007/entries/identity-politics.
Jordan, G., Weedon, C., 1995. Cultural Politics: Class, Gender, Race and the Postmodern World. Blackwell, Oxford.
Kobayashi, A., 2019. Issues of “Race” and Early Radical Geography: Our Invisible Proponents. Spatial Histories of Radical Geography. North America and Beyond, pp. 37–58.
McCutcheon, P., 2013. “Returning home to our rightful place”: the nation of Islam and Muhammad farms. Geoforum 49, 61–70.
McKittrick, K., Woods, C., 2007. Black Geographies and the Politics of Place. South End Press, Boston.
Pecora, V.P. (Ed.), 2001. Nations and Identities. Blackwell, Oxford.
Pulido, L., 2006. Black, Brown, Yellow and Left: Radical Activism in Los Angeles. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.
Young, I.M., 1990. Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
Young, I.M., 2000. Inclusion and Democracy. Oxford University Press, Oxford.