Identity, in sociological term.

Identity is the relation between something and itself. In sociological term, identity is our understanding of who we are and of who other people are, and reciprocally, other peoples’ understanding of themselves and of others. Identity is the way that individual labels of oneself as member of particular groups, it speaks of the sense of belonging, about what you have in common with some people and what differentiates you from others. That gives you basic sense of personal location, the stable core to your individuality, it also related to your social relationships, your interaction with others. More often identity implies an other with which it contrast.

Identity can be expressed in explicit and implicit ways, can be organized in :

1). An explicit way, such as ethnicity, nationality etc, is often used to contrast other groups, example, Chinese people, in contrast with other ethnic groups; Christian, in contrast with other religions.

2). A implicit way, such as environmental or social entity, gender, descent groups etc.

3). Identity also can be thought of as purely personal as membership of something. For example, the citizenship is a key feature of modern national state identity. Membership is often the way in which ethnicity or class are thought of. E.g. religious organization, social class, cultural identity, work-class etc.

4). Identity also can be expressed in the way related to people’s bodies, such as make up, slimming or body building practices or the way we dress etc. The body linked identity is sometime conflicting between what we want to be and want we want to show.

The identities are not fix and always shifting depending on social contexts.

(What else?)......

The concern for identity was not an issue for most of history, in fact, the identity searching and identity crisis are issues related to modernity. The reason for the rise concern of identity is due to:

1). Modernity increase individualism, the concern of identity is form of express of individuality.

2). Capitalism requires constant capital accumulation and manipulation that reveals one’s true identity; it goes hand in hand in development of modern nation states. The state requires individuals to identity themselves with the nation. Citizenship requires people consistently conform with national image, eg Singapore government encourage people to identify themselves according to state image without cultural barriers.

3). Concern of one’s own career, self reflect who they are and what they want to do or to be. In modern society, people have to make conscious efforts to achieve one’s career goal.

4). Finally, globalization is also cause of many identity searching for many migrants. The new process of identity negotiation is ongoing.