Identity Politics: The Struggle for Recognition or Hegemony?

2007 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 704-725 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ibrahim Kaya
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Central Element ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
Cultural Identities ◽  
Intellectual Life ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
New Middle Class ◽  
Identity Based ◽  
Struggle For Recognition

This article aims to answer the question whether identity-based movements are free from economic interests. By analyzing the actions and orientations of the Islamists in Turkey, I show that new social movements based on cultural identities are far from representing the demands of groups for recognition. Rather, these movements aim at establishing hegemony by controlling the intellectual life of society by cultural means. It is insisted that we need a Gramscian view of culture in order to understand the so-called identity politics. Identity-based movements do not refer to the end of social classes, but to the emergence of a new middle class. And against the advocating perspectives on identity politics, I argue that the possible solution to the question of fragmentation could be found in the idea of republic that does not prioritize any culture but seeks a central element that makes it meaningful to talk about such a collective arrangement as society.

scholarly journals Brazilian new middle class stratagem: dialectics of consumption and renewal of the overexploitation of labor

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (88) ◽  
pp. 72-95
Author(s):  
Paulo Ricardo Zilio Abdala ◽  
Maria Ceci Misoczky
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Living Conditions ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
Social Consensus ◽  
Class Theory ◽  
Stratification Theory ◽  
Theoretical Support ◽  
New Middle Class ◽  
The Social

Abstract The argument of this essay is that the ideia of emergence of a new Brazilian middle class was a stratagem adopted to create a positive agenda with transitory social consensus. In order to develop it, we return to the social class theory to discuss the stratification theory, which is the methodological and theoretical support of the so called new middle class. In addition to that, another possibility of analysis is presented, based on the theoretical propositions by Alvaro Vieira Pinto and Ruy Mauro Marini, two authors from the Brazilian social thought, articulating consumption, social classes, work and production as inseparable relationships, part of dependent capitalism contradictions. From these authors´ perspective, it was possible to understand that the expansion of consumption, basis for the new middle class stratagem, temporarily improved the living conditions of people at the expense of deepening the overexploitation of labor, reproducing the development of dependency.

Jewish New Age and the Middle Class: Jewish Identity Politics in Israel under Neoliberalism

Sociology ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 575-591 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dana Kaplan ◽  
Rachel Werczberger
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Jewish Identity ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Religious Pluralism ◽  
New Age ◽  
Identity Based ◽  
Class Reproduction

This article asks why middle-class Israeli seculars have recently begun to engage with Jewish religiosity. We use the case of the Jewish New Age (JNA) as an example of the middle class’s turn from a nationalised to a spiritualised version of Judaism. We show, by bringing together the sociology of religion’s interest in emerging spiritualities and cultural sociology’s interest in social class, how after Judaism was deemed socially significant in identity-based struggles for recognition, Israeli New Agers started culturalising and individualising Jewish religiosity by constructing it in a spiritual, eclectic, emotional and experiential manner. We thus propose that what may be seen as cultural and religious pluralism is, in fact, part of a broader system of class reproduction.

scholarly journals AGROECOLOGY AND SOCIAL CLASSES, AN APPROACH BASED ON THE WORKS BY GYÖRGY LUKÁCS AND MICHEL CLOUSCARD

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
Author(s):  
BENEDITO SILVA NETO
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
The Political ◽  
New Middle Class ◽  
Gyorgy Lukacs

Abstract The article proposes an approach based on György Lukács’s and Michel Clouscard´s works for analyzing class interests within the agroecological field, especially those involving the peasantry and intellectual workers, such as researchers, lecturers and technicians, intellectuals being designated as part of the ‘new middle class’. The divergences between the interests of these existing classes in the agroecological field are evidenced to be fundamental for understanding its true relations with Agribusiness. The hegemony of the political-ideological positions of the new middle class has generated a tendency of Agroecology to integrate into Agribusiness, to the detriment of the class interests of the peasantry. A change in the position of the new middle class would require the reversal of its trajectory, summarized in the article, of more than a century of growing political-ideological subordination to the capitalists’ interests.

scholarly journals Identity and Identity Politics in Nigeria: A Reflection on the Indicators

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (4(17)) ◽  
pp. 263-286
Author(s):  
Tope Shola Akinyetun
Keyword(s):  
Identity Politics ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Cultural Identities ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Political Class ◽  
Identity Based ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Selfish Interest

Nigeria is a nation with plural ethnic, religious, lingual and cultural identities that are constantly exploited by the political class to promote their selfish interest. Although not a determinant forconflict, diversity in Nigeria has unjustifiably sparked identity-based conflicts which necessitateseparatism, insurgency and ethnic restiveness – among others, which threatens to drive the country to a perpetual state of fragility. This paper thence sought to assess Nigeria’s tortuous experience with identity and identity politics with particular reference to ethnic, religious, and lingual challenges. The paper furthers the discussion on identity politics in Nigeria to proffer practicable solutions. It argues that identity consciousness has overtaken national consciousness and engendered a relationship characterized by domination, superiority and hegemony by the various groups. It reveals that the currency of politics is an ethnic-hegemony-rivalry sentiment that threatens national integration. The paper reviews available literature on the subject matter from peer-reviewed journal articles, reports of reputable international organizations, working papers and newspaper articles. It concluded that identities have become powerful manipulative instruments in the hands of the political elites used to divide the Nigerian populace. It recommended the promotion of justice, equity and fairness in governance to ameliorate the chances of identity dissension and identity-based conflicts.

scholarly journals Američka srednja klasa kao nosilac neokonzervativnih ideja u SAD

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Erma Ivoš
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Industrial Workers ◽  
Free Enterprise ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Social Stratum ◽  
New Middle Class ◽  
The Rich ◽  
American Society

Conservatism is the dominant political theory in many capitalist countries of the West. In the U. S. A. the conservative wing of the Republican party was victorious in the presidental elections of 1980. Since then the neo-conservatives have held political power, supported by the widest section of the American society. In recent history there is no other example of such a wide coalition within the otherwise heterogeneous social stratum that the American middle class is. Neo- -conservatism has brought together, on the economic and political levels, their different sets of values but very similar economic interests. The coalition comprisses three segments of the American society the old middle class, the rich middle class, and the new middle class. The old middle class is recruited from the ranks of owners of small production firms, shops, or farms; the rich middle class is composed of industrialists who became rich trading in real estate or investing in oil industry and agriculture; and the new middle class is composed of industrial workers whose class status is dependent on education, occupation, and income. Structural changes in the American society have caused uncertainty to all the three segments of the middle class. In order to preserve their interests, all the three segments have resorted to neo-conservatism as the political expression of their vision of the American society-economically- morally, and politically. Their primary purpose is to provide opportunities of free enterprise on the basis of neo-liberalism, to establish the traditional moral order, and to restore the economic and military prestige both internally and internationally.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold D. Morales
Keyword(s):  
Identity Politics ◽  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
Propositional Knowledge ◽  
History Of ◽  
Muslim Communities ◽  
Struggle For Recognition

The conclusion provides a summary of key developments in the history of Latino Muslim communities and also critically explores future possibilities. While weaving a trail among the history of Islamic Spain, the Alianza Islamica, and subsequent Latino Muslim organizations, the struggle for recognition through solidarity groups emerges as a prominent theme throughout the book. However, this approach to liberation raises complex issues regarding the efficacy and logics of identity politics. Drawing on various sources, I argue that practical knowledge of how to know and how to be in relation with one another may circumvent identity politics premised on static propositional knowledge of groups like Latino Muslims.

Outsourcing the Self

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sunil Bhatia
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Romantic Relationships ◽  
Call Center ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
The Self ◽  
New Middle Class ◽  
First World ◽  
Class Youth ◽  
Call Center Workers

This chapter analyzes how call center workers, who are mostly middle- and working-class youth, create narratives that are described as expressing modern forms of “individualized Indianness.” The chapter demonstrates how call center workers produce narratives of individualized Indianness by engaging in practices of mimicry, accent training, and consumption; by going to public spaces such as bars and pubs; and by having romantic relationships that are largely hidden from their families. The narratives examined in this chapter are created out of an asymmetrical context of power as young Indians work as “subjects” of a global economy who primarily serve “First World” customers. The interviews with Indian youth reflect how tradition and modernity, mimicry and authenticity, collude with each other to dialogically create new middle-class subjectivities.

scholarly journals Towards a Kenotic Identity Politics: Migration, Transformation and the Eucharist

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 380
Author(s):  
Matthew John Paul Tan
Keyword(s):  
Identity Politics ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Eucharistic Theology ◽  
Critical Tradition ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Massive Influx ◽  
Identity Based ◽  
The One

This paper will focus on one element of the pushback against the massive influx of immigrants taken in for humanitarian purposes, namely, an identity-based chauvinism which uses identity as the point of resistance to the perceived dilution of that identity, brought about by the transformation of culture induced by the incorporation of a foreign other. The solution to this perceived dilution is a simultaneous defence of that culture and a demand for a conformity to it. While those in the critical tradition have encouraged a counter-position of revolutionary transformation by the other through ethics, dialogue, or the multitude, such a transformation is arguably impeded by what is ultimately a repetition of the metaphysics of conformity. Drawing on the personalism of Emmanuel Mounier and the Eucharistic theology of Creston Davis and Aaron Riches, this paper submits an alternative identity politics position that completes the revolutionary impulse. Identity here is not the flashpoint of a self-serving conflict, but the launch-point of politics of self-emptying, whose hallmarks include, on the one hand, a never-ending reception of transformation by the other, and on the other hand, an anchoring in the Body of Christ that is at once ever-changing and never-changing.

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