The Ambivalence of Identity


Book Description

The Ambivalence of Identity examines nation-building in Austria and uses the Austrian experience to explore the conceptual foundations of nationhood. Traditionally, Hapsburg, Austria, has provided the background for these works. In the course of this study it should become clear that Republican Austria is as valuable in understanding national identity as its monarchic predecessor. Historical interpretations to Austrian nation-building gives the Austrian experience special relevance for the larger debate about the nature of history. Such aspects in the analysis of the post-war Austrian nation-building are the role of consciousness during the building process, the role of neighboring countries, and the role of World War II.




Fashioning Identity


Book Description

We dress to communicate who we are, or who we would like others to think we are, telling seductive fashion narratives through our adornment. Yet, today, fashion has been democratized through high-low collaborations, social media and real-time fashion mediation, complicating the basic dynamic of identity displays, and creating tension between personal statements and social performances. Fashioning Identity explores how this tension is performed through fashion production and consumption,by examining a diverse series of case studies - from ninety-year old fashion icons to the paradoxical rebellion in 'normcore', and from soccer jerseys in Kenya to heavy metal band T-shirts in Europe. Through these cases, the role of time, gender, age memory, novelty, copying, the body and resistance are considered within the context of the contemporary fashion scene. Offering a fresh approach to the subject by readdressing Fred Davis' seminal concept of 'identity ambivalence' in Fashion, Culture and Identity (1992), Mackinney-Valentin argues that we are in an epoch of 'status ambivalence', in which fashioning one's own identity has become increasingly complicated.




Unresolved Identities


Book Description

Explores the ways that immigrant youth identities are shaped by dominant discourses.




Recognition and Ambivalence


Book Description

Recognition is one of the most debated concepts in contemporary social and political thought. Its proponents, such as Axel Honneth, hold that to be recognized by others is a basic human need that is central to forming an identity, and the denial of recognition deprives individuals and communities of something essential for their flourishing. Yet critics including Judith Butler have questioned whether recognition is implicated in structures of domination, arguing that the desire to be recognized can motivative individuals to accept their assigned place in the social order by conforming to oppressive norms or obeying repressive institutions. Is there a way to break this impasse? Recognition and Ambivalence brings together leading scholars in social and political philosophy to develop new perspectives on recognition and its role in social life. It begins with a debate between Honneth and Butler, the first sustained engagement between these two major thinkers on this subject. Contributions from both proponents and critics of theories of recognition further reflect upon and clarify the problems and challenges involved in theorizing the concept and its normative desirability. Together, they explore different routes toward a critical theory of recognition, departing from wholly positive or negative views to ask whether it is an essentially ambivalent phenomenon. Featuring original, systematic work in the philosophy of recognition, this book also provides a useful orientation to the key debates on this important topic.




Lure and Loathing


Book Description

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Nikki Giovanni, James McPherson, Stephen L. Carter, Itabari Njeri, Reginald McKnight, and twelve other African-American intellectuals reveal with vast originality and candor the "lure and loathing" that characterize the experience of black people in white America.




Between Femininities


Book Description

Arguing for a recognition of the contradictory and ambivalent identifications that both attract and repel those who live the social category "girl," Marnina Gonick analyzes the discourses and practices defining female sexuality, embodiment, relationship to self and other, material culture, use of social space, and cultural-political agency and power. Based on a school-community project involving collaborative production of a video which tells the stories of several fictional girl characters, Gonick examines the contradictory and textured structure of the discourses available to girls through which their identities are negotiated. Woven throughout the book is the integral concern with the way in which ethnographic writing as a discursive practice is also implicated in the production and signification of social identities for girls.




The Maternal Tug


Book Description

While the existence of maternal ambivalence has been evident for centuries, it has only recently been recognized as central to the lived experience of mothering. This accessible, yet intellectually rigorous, interdisciplinary collection demonstrates its presence and meaning in relation to numerous topics such as pregnancy, birth, Caesarean sections, sleep, self-estrangement, helicopter parenting, poverty, environmental degradation, depression, anxiety, queer mothering, disability, neglect, filicide and war rape. Its authors deny the assumption that mothers who experience ambivalence are bad, evil, unnatural, or insane. Moreover, historical records and cross-cultural narratives indicate that maternal ambivalence appears in a wide range of circumstances; but that it becomes unmanageable in circumstances of inequity, deprivation and violence. From this premise, the authors in this collection raise imperative ethical, social, and political questions, suggesting possibilities for vital cultural transformations. These candid explorations demand we rethink our basic assumptions about how mothering is experienced in everyday life.




Modernity and Ambivalence


Book Description

Modern civilization, Bauman argues, promised to make our lives understandable and open to our control. This has not happened and today we no longer believe it ever will. In this book, now available in paperback, Bauman argues that our postmodern age is the time for reconciliation with ambivalence, we must learn how to live in an incurably ambiguous world.




Racial Ambivalence in Diverse Communities


Book Description

This book makes use of in-depth interviews with the residents most active in shaping the racially diverse urban communities in which they live. As most of them are white and progressive, it provides a unique view into the particular ways that color-blind ideologies work among liberals, particularly those who encounter racial diversity regularly. It reveals not just the pervasiveness of color-blind ideology and coded race talk among these residents, but also the difficulty they encounter when they try to speak or work outside of the rubric of color-blindness. This is especially vivid in their concrete discussions of the neighborhoods' diversity and the choices they and their families make to live in and contribute to these communities. This close examination of how they wrestle with diversity in everyday life reveals the process whereby they unintentionally re-create a white habitus inside of these racially diverse communities, where despite their pro-diversity stance they still act upon and preserve comfort and privileges for whites. The book also provides a close examination of white racial identity, as the context of a diverse community provides both the catalyst and, significantly, the space for an examination of an unarticulated racial consciousness, which has implications for our study of whiteness more generally. The layers of ambivalence and pride surrounding the fact of diversity in these neighborhoods and residents' lives reveal both limitations and hope as the nation itself becomes more diverse. This critical and yet compassionate book extends our understanding of contemporary racial ideology and racial discourse, as well as our understanding of the complexities of whiteness.




Racism


Book Description

Racism is ever present today, and it has become common now to refer to a variety of racisms, from biological to cultural, colour-blind, and structural racisms. Ali Rattansi explores the history of racism and illuminates contemporary issues in this controversial subject, from intersectionality to cultural racism, to the debate over whiteness.