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Self in Contemporary Anthropology

PERSON, SELF, IDENTITY


Anthropology – the science that deals with the origins, physical and cultural
development, biological characteristics, and social customs and beliefs of
humankind, has important contributions to make in extending the study of the
self.
FIRST VIEW
RUTH, BENEDICT, MARGRET MEAD, GEOFFREY GORE
• Culture and personality were so interconnected that they could not be viewed
separately
SECOND VIEW
ANTI-CULTURE-PERSONALITY RELATIONSHIP • Humans have developed
adapted responses to the environmental conditions in order to survive
THIRD VIEW
FRUED'S PSYCHOLOGICAL REDUCTIONISM • Cause of social behavior is due
to individuals psychological aspects
FOURTH VIEW
PERSONALITY MEDIATION; Abraham Kardiner, Ralph Linton
• Environment affects the primary institutions, like the
subsistence and settlements patterns of a society • In turn, affects the basic
personality structure which then
affects the secondary institutions, such as religion • This view reconciled
sociological, cultural approach with psychological reductionism
FIFTH VIEW
TWO-SYSTEMS; Inkeles and Levinson, Melford Spiro
• Culture influences socialization patterns which in turn shapes a person
PERSON
Shir-Vertesh • Noted that the term “person” is value-loaded as it relates to
culture. • It can have nodal meanings and peripheral meanings • Example, tv
commercials, bloggers • Notice the difference of the terms “personal” (adjective)
and
“person” (noun) • Person – something evident and public • Personal – concealed
and private
ANCIENT SOURCES OF TERM
• Person - historically conscious term that calls each human being towards a
realization of a dignity already possessed in which the values of being human are
embodied in a maximal way
• Phersu – exhibits a close association with the manifest and the hidden, and with
representation and communication, as would person and personal
PERSON AND PERSONHOOD
• Personhood is a fluid analytical term with diverse and debated meanings.
• Shir-vertesh: personhood as the state of being a social, embodied, and sentient
being
• Anthropologists aver that personhood is not a universal constant but rather
continuously negotiated in specific times and places and in reaction to varying
situations and social relationships
SELF
• West: self is autonomous and egocentric
• Clifford Geertz: western concept, self is characterized as "peculiar”, “a bounded,
unique, more or less integrated motivational and cognitive universe, a dynamic
center of awareness, emotion, judgement and action organized into a distinctive
whole and set contrastively against other such wholes and against it social and
natural background
• Non-west: self is a plurality of contradictory identities
• Anthropological discourse identity and self are two separate
identities
IDENTITY
• Identity refers to a person's perception of his or her place in the social structure
(grounded in sociocultural categories such as race, ethnicity, culture, class)
• Anthropological perspective: identity is culturally and constituted given that
human beings live in cultural settings. It provides pattern of the common way of
living and thinking of the communal experiences
IDENTITY CRISIS
• Identity develops over the course of time.
• Erikson asserts that children do not possess identities, adolescents strive to
attain it.
• Thus identity crisis appears in the process of identity formation
• Social roles – individual possess several identities, differentiating
individual from the others
• modern society: identity is a matter of rational action and being dynamic
IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT
CONCEPT OF IDENTITY USED IN DIFFERENT TERMS
A. Ethnic identity – naturally given and unchangeable entity.
Tied with a nation-state and ethnicity, representing a premodern society which is
resistant to change. Disregarding new social processes.
B. Cultural identity – national-cultural tradition capable of
being changed in a socio-historical process. Open to reconceptualization.
IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT
IDENTITY THROUGH THE LENSES OF ANTHROPOLOGY
• Identity is specifically “anthropological category"
• Identity is a matter of conviction, a possibility of choice due to its
multidimensional expressions: as class, status, profession, styling or symbolic
connotation
IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT
NATURAL COMMUNITY - When being closed to one nation or community, the
concept of identity becomes an ideological construction
Need of belonging may have a destructive nature: happens when certain
individual is frustrated within the family or social community long for the
identification with a militant group which is aggressive, in order to hide one's own
helplessness he will express violence towards the others
TYPE OF BELONGING
A. Group identity may be experienced within a close group
with the exclusion of “others”, of those who are different (either ethnically, by
social status or other group characteristics
B. A liberal comprehension of identity which is open to the
differences and tolerates “otherness”, in terms of a close interconnection
between “self” and “others”. It is always a matter of choice, unlike its
interpretation as naturally given and biologically inherited ways of understanding
and explaining oneself and collective existence
SELF-IDENTITY
• The understanding a person has of himself in relation to the global community.
FOUR PRIMARY MEASURE OF SELF IDENTITY • Personality attributes •
Knowledge of one's skills and abilities • One's occupation and hobbies •
Awareness of one's physical attributes
SELF-IDENTITY
• Self identity considers three time axis:
• Past • Present • Future
• One does not think only of his present self, but also of his past self and future
self
IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT IN ADOLESCENCE AND ADULTHOOD
• Erikson's view, understanding that identity enables one to move with purpose
and direction in life, and with a sense of inner sameness and continuity over time
and place.
• Erikson considered identity to be psychosocial in nature,
formed by the intersection of individual's biological and psychological capacities
in combination with the opportunities and supports offered by one's social context
IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT IN ADOLESCENCE AND ADULTHOOD
• Identity normally becomes a central issue of concern during adolescence, when
decisions about future vocational...
• Identity is not something that one resolves once and for all at the end of
adolescence, but rather identity may continue to evolve and change over the
course of adult life too
IDENTITY-DEFINING DECISIONS
A. Identity diffusion – the status in which the adolescent does
not have a sense of having choices; he or she has not yet made (nor is
attempting/willing to make) a commitment
B. Identity foreclosure – the adolescent seems willing to
commit to some relevant roles , values, goals for the future. Have not
experienced identity crisis. Tend to conform to the expectations of others
regarding their future.
“Pseudo-identity” – too rigid or fixed to meet life's future crises
IDENTITY-DEFINING DECISIONS
C. Identity moratorium – the adolescent is currently in crisis. Exploring various
commitments and is ready to make choices, but has not made a commitment to
these choices yet.
D. Identity achievement – the adolescent has gone though identity crisis and has
made a commitment to a sense of identity (certain role or value) that he or she
has chosen. State of clarity and development of one's identity. Marks a
commitment to an ideology or more direction in terms of occupational goals.

Consider that even under normal conditions there are moments when we want to say
that our action is not expressive of “who we really are”, that we were “not ourselves”
at the time of the action.

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