THE BADGE OF IDENTITY

In contemporary culture, great emphasis is placed on individual identity and image: self-development, self-analysis, finding oneself and defining oneself are all familiar personal goals. In popular media, through psychotherapy and counselling, in the pages of endless self-help manuals, the value of personal journeys and personal growth is repeatedly stressed. Having a clear sense of self and having one's self-identity respected by others are key indicators in modern measurement of wellbeing and personal fulfilment and they are “widely recognised as intrinsically and instrumentally important aspects of a good form of life.” But when we talk of identity in these contexts what do we mean?

Our identity is how we feel about ourselves from the inside but it is also how we are badged by others. In response to the question, “what is your identity?” there are many possible answers. How we label ourselves depends at least partially on our assessment of the reason we are being asked. The particular context will oft en suggest a number of possible labels from which we might choose and we establish our own identity “by constructing a sense of the place and identity of others” around us. How we see ourselves is to a greater or lesser extent informed by how others see us and is the result of a process of construction and negotiation. Establishment of individual identity is linked to the place of the individual within his or her group. Social construction and assertion of one's identity as an individual and negotiating recognition in association with others in community are processes, which can be “encompassed in the phrase ‘identity politics’”. In Europe, for example, social and political concerns about identity have arisen in the context of migration and the increasing prevalence in European states of unfamiliar minority groups. The social and political drive to define and establish group identity is linked to greater awareness of diversity and the realisation that “relative power … is partly manifested through the ability to name oneself and others”.