Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-07T23:03:08.160Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - At Play with Identity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2013

Jeremy MacClancy
Affiliation:
Professor of Social Anthropology at Oxford Brookes University
Get access

Summary

Identity is a catch-all term of our times. It is an empty vessel which can be filled with almost any content. As a quick perusal of recent volumes on European communities shows, astute anthropologists can use identity as a general framing device for a surprising variety of ethnographic data. In these books discussion can span from the individual to the regional to the supranational, from styles of dress or dance to religious faith. The range of possible topics seems to be limited only by the imaginative power of the compiler. The worry, of course, is that we anthropologists may well impose a notion of identity upon unmarked aspects of others' cultures. The danger is that we may extol or assiduously analyse a part of others' lives which they themselves regard as of little importance or as not just restricted to themselves but as common to many. We start to find symbols where none at present exists. The resulting ethnography may tell us more about the classificatory ingenuity of its author than about the way the people studied regard themselves. In these conditions identity begins to seem primarily an anthropologists' category; it appears to be an unjustifiably arbitrary manner of delineating others' lives in academic terms.

In his Scots ethnography Whalsay, Anthony Cohen worries about the implications of anthropologists inferring symbolism in other people's behaviour. He argues that in the analysis of other's social identity the interpretations anthropologists make are the ways that they, rather than the locals, make sense of what the natives do.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • At Play with Identity
  • Jeremy MacClancy, Professor of Social Anthropology at Oxford Brookes University
  • Book: Expressing Identities in the Basque Arena
  • Online publication: 05 September 2013
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • At Play with Identity
  • Jeremy MacClancy, Professor of Social Anthropology at Oxford Brookes University
  • Book: Expressing Identities in the Basque Arena
  • Online publication: 05 September 2013
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • At Play with Identity
  • Jeremy MacClancy, Professor of Social Anthropology at Oxford Brookes University
  • Book: Expressing Identities in the Basque Arena
  • Online publication: 05 September 2013
Available formats
×