essentialism

The view that particular entities (e.g. certain types of human beings) possess
specific characteristics that are fixed and internal. An essentialist argument
would be that someone is the way they are because they are born that way
and are unlikely to change their essential nature. Many sexual and ethnic
categorizations are essentialist. Essentialist thinking is often behind quantitative
research (e.g. sets of questions aimed at revealing a persons inner
personality or the extent to which they are masculine or feminine). Biological
or evolutionary explanations for difference can also be referred to as
essentialist. Since the 1980s, essentialism has been relatively unpopular in
social science research, being challenged by SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM and
POSTSTRUCTURALISM. It could be argued that essentialism results in
STEREOTYPES,
whereby negative qualities are assigned to everyone who is labelled as a
certain IDENTITY category; differences are exaggerated and those who
blur, straddle or cannot be categorized into existing identity boundaries are
subject to ERASURE. However, some researchers have argued that it is
sometimes advantageous for particular ethnic or minority groups to present
themselves as having a unified, stable identity (e.g. by downplaying intragroup
differences) as this may help them to achieve certain political goals.
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak refers to this as strategic essentialism (Landry and
MacLean 1996: 214), while Judith Butler (1991: 1) uses the term strategic
provisionality.