Torquetum

 

Identity means being recognised as being a particular kind of person. It can change from moment to moment, from context to context and can be ambiguous and unstable (p. 99). Gee is not interested (in this paper) in the potential existence of some sort of “core identity” but in people’s “performances in society” (p. 99). He provides (p. 100) four ways in which one can be recognised as being a particular kind of person.

Nature-identity: a state developed from forces in nature.

Institution-identity: a position authorized by authorities within institutions.

Discourse-identity: an individual trait recognized in the discourse/dialogue of/with “rational” individuals.

Affinity-identity: experiences shared in the practice of “affinity groups”.

“It is crucial to realize that these four perspectives are not separate from each other. Both in theory and in practice, they interrelate in complex and important ways. Rather than discrete categories, they are ways to focus our attention on different aspects of how identities are formed and sustained” (p. 101, emphasis in original). Different “strands” predominate at different times and in different places.

 

Gee goes on to illustrate these identities in several ways. Some details: 

- N-identities are only identities insofar as they are recognised.

- I-identities could be callings, or could be impositions.

- While D-identities are about individualities, they are determined through discourse or dialogue with other people.

- The term “rational individuals” refers to people who are communicating with the person for some personal reason, not because they are forced to communicate for some reason to do with authority or institutional processes. 

- The types of identity can blur a bit, borrow from one another and support one another. For example, Gee gives the example of a child understood in class, without formal diagnosis, as being ADHD, a D-identity arising from interactions in class. A formal diagnosis of the child being ADHD, supported by school systems would be an I-identity. However “official” recognition signs of ADHD have “floated into people’s everyday recognition systems” (p. 104) which blurs the distinctions somewhat. Another example is that I-identities (such as being a university professor) “require discourse and dialogue to sustain them”, recruiting the forces that sustain D-identities (p. 104-105). 

- A-identities can sometimes be “institutionally sanctioned’ (p. 107) where it is some outside authority (a business, school teachers) that is trying to create an affinity group for some reason. Gee suggests that trying to create a “community” of learners in a classroom is such an object. An affinity group such as Trekkies is a counter example of such an institutionally created group.

- Affinity groups can also be “morally heated” (p. 107, citing others) and make strange bedfellows in trying to bring about social/legal/other change.

 

“One cannot have an identity of any sort without some interpretive system under-writing the recognition of the identity” (p. 107 emphasis in original, citing Taylor, 1994). I really like this. In fact, it seems the whole crux of Gee’s perspective on identities. He goes on to look at the identity of being African American under all four of his identity groupings. In each case (I-identity, D-identity, etc.) there is an interpretive system through which each identity can be recognised. There might be points to argue or disagree with for each of these systems, but they can be seen to exist. Gee points out that D-identities relate directly to recognition (pretty much by definition), the others do too, possibly in less direct and more filtered ways. “If an attribute is not recognized as defining someone as a particular “kind of person” then, of course, it cannot serve as an identity of any sort” (p. 109).

 

To this foursome of socially and historically mediated identities, Gee adds the concept of “core identity”. A person’s core identity is a combination of her trajectory through Discourse space and her narrativization of this trajectory. The trajectory through Discourse space refers to the person’s experiences over time of having been recognised as being a particular kind of person in different context, by different people, some identity recognitions recurring, some not. “The Discourses are social and historical, but the person’s trajectory and narritivization are individual” (p. 111). Note the use of big-D Discourse, which refers to Gee’s widely used theory of how being recognised as a particular kind of person is influenced by a combination of how you look, speak, act, etc. See elsewhere for Gee’s Discourse theory.

 

A section of the paper is devoted to looking at modernism and postmodernism through the lens of Gee’s identity formulations. He also uses the identity formulations to explain what he saw in some literacy classes he attended in a local school. These examples are interesting for the way they illustrate how the identity types can be applied at different grain sizes.

 

With reference to scholarly studies “dealing with how race, gender, class, and ability shape people’s behavior, how they are treated, and the outcomes that result from their interactions with gatekeepers and powerful institutions” (p. 119) Gee draws parallels between his four identity formulations and these studies.

1. He sees the presence of his D-identities in studies related to “interactional achievements” (p. 119) of various gender, race of socio-economic groups. If these studies are concerned with relationships between and interactions across such groups, then D-identities are involved.

2. Studies involving race, gender, etc., involve institutions in one or more ways, how they position themselves, how they position various groups of people, how they could change. As such, I-identities are involved.

3. Studies which either argue against categorisation due to genes, fixed ability, etc., as well as studies which argue for the role of genes, biology, chemistry in determining future consequences are all interested in N-identities.

4. A-identities make their presence felt in studies looking at the development of identities through networking, shared communication, creating of communities both in and out of school.