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Questions of Cultural Identity

Edited by:

Stuart Hall
Paul du Gay - Copenhagen Business School, Denmark

Other Titles in:
Cultural Studies (General) | Social Theory

April 1996 | 208 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd

Why and how do contemporary questions of culture so readily become highly charged questions of identity? The question of cultural identity lies at the heart of current debates in cultural studies and social theory. At issue is whether those identities which defined the social and cultural world of modern societies for so long - distinctive identities of gender, sexuality, race, class and nationality - are in decline, giving rise to new forms of identification and fragmenting the modern individual as a unified subject.

Questions of Cultural Identity offers a wide-ranging exploration of this issue. Stuart Hall firstly outlines the reasons why the question of identity is so compelling and yet so problematic. The cast of outstanding contributors then interrogate different dimensions of the crisis of identity; in so doing, they provide both theoretical and substantive insights into different approaches to understanding identity.

Stuart Hall

Introduction

Who Needs `Identity'?

Zygmunt Bauman

From Pilgrim to Tourist - or a Short History of Identity

Marilyn Strathern

Enabling Identity?

Biology, Choice and the New Reproductive Technologies

Homi K Bhabha

Culture's In-Between

Kevin Robins

Interrupting Identities

Turkey/Europe

Lawrence Grossberg

Identity and Cultural Studies - Is That All There Is?

Simon Frith

Music and Identity

Nikolas Rose

Identity, Genealogy, History

Paul du Gay

Organizing Identity

Entrepreneurial Governance and Public Management

James Donald

The Citizen and the Man about Town

`This impressive and timely collection of essays addresses the significance of cultural identity as social phenomenon and provides an insight into a number of new approaches for unfolding its complexity.... This is not only a collection of some of the most respected thinkers in the social sciences but reveals the variety of paths that can be followed in pursuit of the question of cultural identity' - Sociology

`This collection of essays brings together contributions from different disciplines and theoretical traditions in an effort to illuminate and advance the debate about cultural identity and its meaning in contemporary social formations. It is of value to those engaged in social and cultural theory, the social sciences, cultural studies, and the humanities' - Sociological Abstracts

`Hall's opening essay is wide-ranging about theorisations of identities... Ten essay cover many different types of ground, often stimulatingly and at times surprisingly.... As a whole, though dispersed, the book well fulfills its aim to ask why "questions of cultural identity have acquired visibility and salience" across fields of research' - The Times Higher Education Supplement