Power and Identity

Perspectives from the social sciences

Denis Sindic, Manuela Barreto, Rui Costa-Lopes, Denis Sindic, Manuela Barreto, Rui Costa-Lopes

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781134101504
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Social Psychology
• Index: Psychology

The concepts of power and identity are vital to many areas of social research. In this edited collection, a prominent set of contributors explore the double relationship between power and group identity, focusing on two complementary lines of enquiry:

• In what ways can the powerful dictate the identities of the powerless?

• 
  
  

• How can the powerless redefine their identity to challenge the powerful?

• 
  
  

Each chapter is written by leading authorities in the field, and investigates a particular aspect of the interplay of identity and power via a range of empirical contexts such as colonialism, nationalism, collective action, and electoral politics.

The case studies include early modern Goa under Portuguese rule, the tribes of modern-day Jordan, the use of sexual stereotyping and objectification by female activists seeking to transform social systems, and a revisiting of the classic Stanford Prison Experiment. The chapters include contributions from a variety of social disciplines and research methodologies, and together provide a comprehensive overview of a subject at the cutting-edge of social and political psychology.

Power and Identity will be of great interest to researchers, graduates and upper-level undergraduate students from across the social sciences.

1

POWER AND IDENTITY

The multiple facets of a complex relationship

Denis Sindic, Manuela Barreto and Rui Costa-Lopes

Anyone who seriously contemplates a world map for the first time cannot help but notice a striking disparity in the way some national boundaries are drawn compared to others. Whereas many defy all geometrical logic, others seem to have been traced with a ruler. This disparity is so readily apparent that for many of us it forms the basis of the first geopolitical fact we learn. Indeed, even children are able to surmise that perfectly straight boundaries cannot possibly correspond to natural features but must result from human intervention, and if they enquire as to how the straight boundaries came to be as they are, they will be told by more informed adults that they are the result of colonisation and its aftermath.

However, the impact of colonisation on the current delimitation of some countries is only the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Not only the territorial boundaries of nations but also the contours of many of today’s national identities are still bound up with the lines drawn by colonial powers. Many of the “unusually” straight borders originate from past arrangements between colonial powers or past internal administrative divisions within the territory of a single colonial power (Anderson, 1991). They were drawn with little to no regard for pre-existing groupings among the indigenous populations, and as a result, many who saw themselves as one people ended up on different sides of a divide, whereas others who saw themselves as different were joined together. In both cases, however, the end of colonisation did not necessarily entail a return to earlier patterns of group distinctions and group identifications. The sense of being one country (or of being different countries), fostered by living under arrangements created by colonial decision making, often persisted after colonisation. In time, many of the descendants of the first colonisers also came to see their particular colony as the prime focus of their sense of national loyalty (e.g. see Anderson, 1991). Colonisation, then, is responsible for the very creation of many of today’s nations and their specific national identities. It also had dramatic effects on the specific nature and content of those identities, through the dissemination of the colonisers’ languages, customs and religions in colonised lands. Once again, much of this colonial heritage has survived the end of colonisation, despite possible alterations. For instance, Christian faith is nowadays deeply ingrained in large parts of Africa and South America, and it is still on the rise despite its steady decline in Europe, the home of those who spread the faith to those continents in the first place (e.g. Bellofatto & Johnson, 2013; Jenkins, 2002).

With such considerations, we have left the realm of pure geopolitics to enter the domain of “psycho-politics” that defines the general theme of this volume. Identity is primarily a psychological construct, since it concerns the particular way in which human beings define their self-concept and since it draws its strength as an engine of human thought and action from its psychological existence. One may of course argue (as the very contributions in this volume exemplify) that identities are also inherently social or political, insofar as the specific way in which identities are defined is entirely dependent upon social and political relations, but making that argument is precisely to stress the social or political constitution of what is fundamentally a psychological reality. Power, on the other hand, is primarily a political concept. In very broad terms that are meant to encompass a variety of approaches, it can be defined as the ability to act upon the human world to change it or to maintain it. To enquire about the relationship between power and identity is therefore to enquire about the ways in which the psychology of identity interacts with the political dynamics of power.

Some scholars, such as Foucault, have argued that actually there is no identity without power—and the reverse could also be advocated. If that is the case (and even if it isn’t), one can wonder why a joint consideration of power and identity (and of their relationship) has not been more pre-eminent in the social sciences, given their status as key concepts in many areas of social research. Of course, it is in the nature of social research to be selective and to isolate a few dimensions for analysis among the infinite number that compose the social world. However, one might nevertheless be surprised at the fact that power and identity have not been jointly selected for examination more frequently, and that the two issues have generally been compartmentalised by being the object of scrutiny of different disciplines and/or of different research traditions within the same discipline. This is the case even within the discipline of political psychology, which, if the above definitions hold, should in principle constitute the natural home for the consideration of the interplay between power and identity. Those hoping to find a long and strong tradition of coupling those two concepts together in the analysis of empirical phenomena within the domain of political psychology will soon be disappointed. Rather, they will find that each has generally occupied a central place in separate lines of research.

Fortunately, these claims are slowly becoming a thing of the past, for the last decade has seen an increased interest both in identity issues among those studying power and in issues of power within identity research. This volume seeks to contribute to moving the field forward by bringing together varied examples of these analyses in a single collection of essays. The leading role that political psychology would naturally be expected to play in this enterprise is reflected in the fact that the majority of the assembled contributions come from this field and/or from the sister discipline of social psychology. Nevertheless, as a way of resisting further compartmentalisation, they have been complemented by contributions from other highly relevant disciplines, namely history, anthropology and politics. Before outlining the details of these contributions, however, we will examine in more detail the general question addressed in this volume, i.e. what is entailed in an analysis of the intersection between power and identity within the perspective that is adopted here.

Power and identity: a two-way relationship

The questions raised by Foucault and Marx, as well as the limits in the scope of their enquiry, are helpful in circumscribing the general issues addressed in this volume. At the heart of Foucault’s work, particularly in its later stages, is his pressing concern with the relationship between the self and power (Foucault, 1976/1998, 1982/2002a, 1984/1985, 1984/1986). For Foucault, the self is not constituted internally through the subject’s own efforts, but externally by the multitude of social practices that are specifically dedicated to its moulding—practices that he coined the “technologies of the self” (Foucault, 1988/2002b). However, the Foucaldian self is more than just another variant on the idea of the social self, for the social practices that shape it are always the expression of strategies of power—they are always political, as well as social. As a result, the self is conceived as “a vital element in the networks of power that traverse modern societies” (Rose, 1999, p. 217); it is the fulcrum on which those networks rely to achieve their effects, defining people in particular ways in order to secure their alignment with dominant interests. The self is a political tool of subjection through “subjectification” (Foucault, 1976/1998), i.e. it turns people into subjects in the psychological sense for the purpose of ensuring their status as subjects in the political sense. What makes it such an effective tool in that regard is that the aspirations and imperatives of the self are generally deemed to come from “within”, thereby hiding the power that presides over their constitution.

As our opening example suggests, the focus in this volume is on collective, social or group identities, i.e. identities that are derived from belonging to a particular segment of society, and are therefore both shared with others and limited in scope. At first sight this might appear to contrast with Foucault’s approach. Indeed, as the title of one of his essays—“The political technology of individuals” (Foucault, 1988/2002b)—indicates, the practices on which he focuses often aim to construct human beings as individuals (e.g. through promoting the self-examination of one’s sexual desires). At the same time, these practices are deemed to characterise Western society as a whole, rather than being specifically associated with any of its particular segments. Nevertheless, one of Foucault’s important points is that the selfdefinitions engendered by the technologies of the self are also used to create, delimit and define particular social categories (e.g. sexual deviants). As such, Foucault’s insights into the relation between self and power can be, and have been, fruitfully applied to the analysis of group identities.

However, there is at least one fundamental way in which the questions raised in this volume go beyond a Foucaldian form of enquiry. Foucault’s approach to the relationship between power and self is avowedly one-sided, with everything flowing from the former to the latter. By contrast, our goal is to consider the relationship between power and (group) identity as a two-way street, making room for the insight that the latter may constitute the basis through which human beings may, in turn, actively participate in the construction of power. In other words, identities can be more than the end result of strategies of power, and their effects on thoughts and actions can be more than a mere reflection of those strategies. Even when identities are initially imposed externally by dominant powers, those that are targeted by such impositions can actively reclaim the imposed identities by redefining their particular contours and content. What is more, they often do this precisely to regain power, at least over the definition of their own self. Foucault expressly denied that there was a single, coherent and dominant strategy of power in any society, suggesting instead that many diverse strategies are present as multiple vectors pushing in similar or opposite directions (Foucault, 1976/1998). However, his focus was definitely on the strategies that emerge as the winners in this interplay of power vectors. He did not provide a detailed account of how alternative strategies of resistance may develop, and in particular how they might develop around the very identities created by dominant powers. As a result, he failed to consider that identity might be a power resource (i.e. a source of power creation for the powerless) as well as a resource of power (i.e. a tool used by dominant powers).

In contrast, this dialogical relationship between power and identity can be found in Marxism with the twin concepts of “false consciousness” and “class consciousness”¹—although the scope of these concepts is limited to one particular type of group identity, i.e. class identity (Marx & Engels, 1844, 1846/1978). In the exploitative relationship between the bourgeoisie and the workers, false consciousness is the means through which the submission of the latter is smoothly operated. Ideological and institutional resources are deployed by the bourgeoisie to shape the psychology of workers and mislead them into defining their wishes and wants in ways that do not correspond to their “real” interests. This operation creates a “false consciousness” that ensures the maintenance of the existing power structure based on economic differences. This includes promoting (illusory) group divisions among the workers. Achieving class consciousness, on the other hand, is one of the necessary steps in paving the way towards liberation from capitalist exploitation. According to Marxism, it is when the veil of false consciousness is lifted and workers realise where their real interests lie that they can become united by their joint interest in the fight against exploitation. In other words, it is through the development of a common identity as members of the working class that workers can overcome their internal divisions (promoted by the bourgeoisie) and gain the power to overthrow the bourgeoisie.

Nevertheless, although Marx did not claim this would be easy, one could argue that he still underestimated the difficulties in achieving that result, notably by misjudging the hold that “illusory” class-alternative identities can have on social and political actors. Indeed, contrary to Marx’s predictions, it has been argued that the development of an overarching class identity uniting all workers within the capitalist system never actually took place, mainly because of the interference of cross-cutting identities at the national level (e.g. Anderson, 1991). Revolutions that, rightly or wrongly, took their cue from Marx framed their fight in national terms: rather than fighting against the bourgeoisie, they insisted that the fight was against their bourgeoisie (e.g. Inder Singh, 2001; Nimni, 2001). Even more problematic for classic Marxist theory, this hold of national divisions has not been limited to workers; in many historical instances the bourgeoisie also did not act as if moved by a single, transnational common interest, but by what they perceived to be their country’s interests. The lessons of history therefore make it difficult to dismiss national identities as mere ideological “illusions” concocted by the bourgeoisie with the sole purpose of dividing the workers. More generally, the role of identity in politics, national or otherwise, has so far proved to be resilient to any reduction to a tool of class warfare.

In one respect, then, Marxism comes close to the Foucaldian approach in that it tends to consider all identities, aside from class, to be little more than the effect of power. As a result, identities lose some of their substance as engines of human action. Their role is restricted to mere intermediaries between power and action. In contrast, the aim of this volume is to examine the bidirectional relationship between power and identity in a way that conceives of them as “equal partners” in that dialogue, i.e. as possessing the same conceptual “thickness” and explanatory power in the shaping of human action. As a matter of fact, one of the key lessons coming out of the contributions in this volume is that the two sides of the dialogue between power and identity are deeply intertwined. Looking at one particular side, be it the ways in which power dynamics shape identity or the ways in which identity dynamics constitute power, merely captures a static picture of what essentially constitutes a feedback loop with no independent starting point.

Outline of the chapters

Aside from this introductory chapter, this volume is comprised of seven chapters that analyse the issues of power and identity in specific empirical contexts, and a concluding chapter that comments on the earlier contributions and teases out some of the common themes and messages. Although both sides of the power–identity relationship can be found in every contribution, the seven chapters in the middle have been organised according to the side on which they place their main emphasis. Thus Chapters 2 and 3 focus mainly on how power shapes the contours and content of identities, whereas Chapters 6, 7 and 8 examine in more detail the role of identity in the constitution of power. In the middle, Chapters 4 and 5 operate as transitions since they address both sides in relatively equal proportions.

Chapter 2, by Xavier, illustrates the ways in which the identities of colonised populations can be shaped by the power of the colonisers. Xavier draws on the case of the colony of Goa under Portuguese rule in the sixteenth century to examine the contradictions in the “policies of identity” put in place to deal with indigenous populations. These contradictions can be traced back to an essential paradox that can also be found at the heart of contemporary debates on acculturation and multiculturalism. They flow from the fact that colonial power sought to assimilate Indians through religious conversion in order to extend the power of the colonial empire, but at the same time aimed to recreate differences to maintain the existing power hierarchy within the empire on which the whole colonial system depended. In that process, the “natives” found themselves in an “identity limbo”: irremediably transformed, they could not go back to their original identity, but neither were they truly accepted as members of the colonisers’ group.

However, while the role of power in the moulding of identity may be particularly apparent in the case of colonialism, it is by no means limited to that context, nor is it limited to the case of groups using their power to define the identities of those considered to be “others”. Power can also be at play in the way groups define the identity of their own members. In Chapter 3, Sobral shows how the implementation of strategies and policies designed to affect identity can be seen as one of the key occupations of the State in its attempt to define and bind the nation. Debates are ongoing as to the modernity or antiquity of nations, but what is clear is that national identities do not “naturally” emerge in a simple bottom-up process. Rather, they need to be actively shaped (as well as continuously maintained), and one of the foremost agents in that process is the State itself. Sobral looks at the means through which this was historically accomplished in the case of Portugal and Portuguese identity. However, the particular means deployed (e.g. the designation of a significant other) are not limited to that specific case, since they can be found in many other instances of nation construction or identity formation in general.

Chapter 4 by Gao looks at the role of tribal identity in the civic life and electoral politics of Jordan, and in doing so provides...