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Book part
Publication date: 24 October 2019

Chris Provis

The idea of ‘identity politics’ has become quite prominent in news commentary. It has been referred to in explaining the 2016 US Presidential election result, the 2016 Brexit vote…

Abstract

The idea of ‘identity politics’ has become quite prominent in news commentary. It has been referred to in explaining the 2016 US Presidential election result, the 2016 Brexit vote and a variety of other events in contemporary social life. The idea emerged under that title in the late twentieth century, and refers to political conflicts where groups unite and act on the basis of some shared identity. While the term initially referred to action by groups seeking to remedy past oppression, ‘identity politics’ may now refer to a wider range of cases where there is contestation based on recognition of some shared identity. Individuals’ identity is central to resurgent modern virtue ethics, but it has been suggested that virtue ethics is less relevant to political conflict than utilitarian views or theories of justice. However, an important distinction can be made between narrative identity, on the one hand, and social identity that emerges from individuals’ self-perceived group membership, on the other hand. It is narrative identity that figures in major accounts of virtue ethics. In many situations, narrative identity is importantly affected by group identity, but it is still only narrative identity that has intrinsic ethical weight. This suggests that virtue ethics has relevance to identity politics just because it urges attention to individuals’ narrative identity rather than to group identity.

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Ethics in a Crowded World: Globalisation, Human Movement and Professional Ethics
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83867-008-5

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Book part
Publication date: 10 October 2006

Yossi Yonah

In this commentary I take issue with Torpey's claim that political developments at the dawn of the new millennium caused liberal democracies to tilt away from those visions that…

Abstract

In this commentary I take issue with Torpey's claim that political developments at the dawn of the new millennium caused liberal democracies to tilt away from those visions that have the potential of promoting an inclusive and just society. I argue that the politics of identity and its modes of repair do not necessarily undermine these visions but rather render them often possible and even infuse them with their true meaning. I present my argument against Israel's recent policies to privatize state-owned lands and of the various strategies employed by different social groups to influence these policies in their favor. These policies, I claim, involve all the ingredients that figure in Torpey's lamentation against the politics of identity and its modes of repair. In a way, they buttress Torpey's disdain for the politics of difference, for they show how the category of culture or cultural affiliation figure detrimentally in the articulation of social groups’ demands for reparation based on their past. But nonetheless, and in contrast to his condemnation of identity politics, I present this account with the aim of underscoring its significance and of stressing the importance of reparation as a means to promote equal and full citizenship. My claim is that social and political arrangements in the nation-state are so ordered – either formally or informally – that they promote the interests of the dominant groups, based on their alleged past contribution to the res public, i.e., the common good of the nation. Put differently, the promotion of these interests is grounded in what we may label republican meritocracy. Republican meritocracy amounts to a reward system allocating benefits to dominant groups for the efforts they allegedly exerted in the past in promoting the ‘vital interests’ of the nation. Thus, this system takes on board the notion of compensation but incorporates it within a meritocratic system. It does not grant these groups with a compensation for past injustices inflicted upon them but a compensation for their alleged past contribution to the nation. Hence, when marginalized and oppressed groups embark upon identity politics they do not actually depart from a political system that looks askance at the idea of reparation and compensation, but rather they employ moral vocabulary which is already embedded in that system.

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Political Power and Social Theory
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-437-9

Book part
Publication date: 14 November 2022

Alexandre Pais

This chapter sets out the political participation of a group of young socialists in Manchester. The analysis indicates that the young socialists’ participation was driven by a…

Abstract

This chapter sets out the political participation of a group of young socialists in Manchester. The analysis indicates that the young socialists’ participation was driven by a critique of the structural conditions of capitalism. The young people in this group deliberately eschewed discussions of individual stories in their group’s activism, or in recounting what brought them to the group. In doing so, they reject the place of individual needs and stories (framed here as an element of ‘identity politics’) in bringing about the societal change they believe is necessary. This is not to say that they deny the place or role of identity politics but, rather, that they want to supplement achieving change in individual categories of oppression by creating the economic (i.e. non-capitalist) conditions where all oppressions are eliminated. The young socialists’ participation in terms of their group sessions was quite formal in nature (lecture, discussion, etc.) and was concerned with education and theoretical debate, replicating practices from the socialist movement. Drawing on contemporary theory the chapter argues that the socialist students compare greatly to other young people who may be cast as ‘radically unpolitical’ because of the socialists’ sober adherence to an old ideology.

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Reshaping Youth Participation: Manchester in a European Gaze
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80043-358-8

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Book part
Publication date: 20 September 2014

Amaka Okechukwu

Social movement scholarship points to the significance of collective identity in social movement emergence. This chapter examines the relationship between structural identities

Abstract

Social movement scholarship points to the significance of collective identity in social movement emergence. This chapter examines the relationship between structural identities, such as race, gender, and sexuality, and the collective identity of student activist conferences in order to analyze how groups succeed or fail at engaging difference. Utilizing ethnographic participant observation at two student activist conferences – one of majority Black students and the other of majority white male students – this chapter employs an intersectional framework in analyzing the resonance of organizational collective action frames. This chapter finds that cultural resonance, frame centrality, and experiential commensurability are all important factors in engaging difference, and that the utilization of political intersectionality in framing may shape frame resonance. This framework that applies intersectionality to framing contributes to social movement analysis by recognizing how structural identities shape collective identity and group mobilization.

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Intersectionality and Social Change
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78441-105-3

Keywords

Abstract

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Constructing Realities
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83797-546-4

Article
Publication date: 7 March 2008

Maxim Voronov

The purpose of this paper is to add to the emerging literatures on organizational learning and strategic management by developing a practice perspective on strategic…

1987

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to add to the emerging literatures on organizational learning and strategic management by developing a practice perspective on strategic organizational learning (SOL). While the literature on SOL has been growing, much of it has targeted exclusively practitioners and has not yet elaborated the mechanics and the micro‐dynamics of SOL. This paper is an initial attempt at exploring two important aspects of SOL: deep‐structure politics, and sensegiving.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper reports a qualitative case study of a major construction project undertaken by a mid‐size urban university as a part of its strategic change initiative.

Findings

Several ways in which deep‐structure politics shaped SOL at the research site are highlighted. The findings suggest that deep‐structure politics and sensegiving can shape identity processes in the context of SOL in important ways, such as dramatically altering the identity of the project team and symbolically separating it from the host institution.

Originality/value

The paper enriches the predominantly practitioner literature on SOL with empirical examination of the practices of SOL.

Details

The Learning Organization, vol. 15 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0969-6474

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 17 June 2022

Aidan Gillespie

This chapter examines the term Vulnerability and interrogates the assumptions held about it as a concept often mutually agreed upon but not mutually understood. Policy and…

Abstract

This chapter examines the term Vulnerability and interrogates the assumptions held about it as a concept often mutually agreed upon but not mutually understood. Policy and practice emerging out of a drive to identify those deemed vulnerable is common to all aspects of work across multiple state agencies such as schools, care and social work sectors but across these professions, those regarded as vulnerable are often grouped together without an in-depth analysis of cause. Identity Politics provides a lens from which to examine these issues and to begin to address some of the ways individuals may be regarded as vulnerable. Emerging from this, an analysis of different aspects of identity gives rise to modes of vulnerability and what this might mean for professionals engaged with individuals whose needs are multiple and complex. The political context for an examination of how vulnerability is understood and addressed across state sectors is introduced.

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Understanding Safeguarding for Children and Their Educational Experiences
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80262-709-1

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Book part
Publication date: 30 October 2004

Orly Lobel

It has been argued that the workplace and the labor market in general, by processes of education, mobility and competition, have become the main forces behind the…

Abstract

It has been argued that the workplace and the labor market in general, by processes of education, mobility and competition, have become the main forces behind the individualization and atomization in societies and in people’s lives. This paper inquires into the tensions between solidarity, identity, and individualism among workers in their efforts to organize collective struggles to improve their workplaces and their lives. Drawing on the dilemmas of increased diversity in the new workplace, the paper delineates three models of organized labor: (1) The Universalist-Individualist model of organized labor, peaking at the New Deal crisis and embedded in National Labor Relations Act, as an attempt to establish universal solidarity, which suppressed differences and presented a unified worker voice; (2) The Separatist model, which emerges as a reaction to intragroup exclusion and involves fragmentation of workers into identity groups, each representing the interests of its members; (3) The Coalitionist-Altruist model, envisioned in the paper as a middle ground between solidarity and self-interest, through interrelated moves: a move from totalizing universal solidarity to coalitionist solidarity through continuous dialogue and “rotation of centers” and a move from rights-based identity politics and the dominance of employment antidiscrimination claims to a fuller substantive theory for social reform.

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Diversity in the Work Force
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-76230-788-3

Article
Publication date: 4 September 2017

Katie Attwell and David T. Smith

The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical framework for understanding the identity politics associated with parental hesitancy and refusal of vaccines for their…

2020

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical framework for understanding the identity politics associated with parental hesitancy and refusal of vaccines for their children (“vaccine hesitancy or refusal” or “VHR”). Understanding these identity politics helps policymakers to craft appropriate communication interventions that do not make the problem worse.

Design/methodology/approach

Social identity theory is a way of understanding how group identities develop around the lifestyle practices that often include refusal to vaccinate, and how this group identity is accentuated by conflict with the pro-vaccinating societal mainstream. This paper critically appraises existing studies of VHR to explore this groupness across many different contexts.

Findings

Groupness is evident across many different contexts. There are also key group characteristics: preference for natural birth and breastfeeding, nature as a concept and use of complementary and alternative medicine.

Research limitations/implications

The paper is speculative and theoretical, using existing sources. Future studies will need to demonstrate empirically with new data. However, this theoretical approach sets up a new research agenda.

Social implications

These findings can help governments and policymakers minimise social conflict that risks further polarising vaccine conversations and wedging parents on the fence.

Originality/value

This paper argues that the decision to vaccinate or not is an inherently social one, not a matter of pure individual rationality. This is a novel approach to engaging with what is often characterised and studied as an individual decision.

Details

International Journal of Health Governance, vol. 22 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2059-4631

Keywords

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