Daring Theses on Identity
Daring Theses on Identity

Summary/Abstract: The concept of identity has cropped up in the past few decades, not only in philosophical, sociological and social psychological texts, strictly understood, but also in the fields of anthropology, history and political science. A number of paths stand open to the social scientist to avoid this disorder. She/he can exchange the expression ’identity’ for representation, life history, etc. or can hang on adjectives such as political, national, ethnic, gender, etc. to the concept, in order to better define the subject of study. The fixation, inference and enumeration of collective identities, or homogenization, is not so much an efficient tool of science (and thereby understanding) as of power (and thereby control). Science can finally return to the quantitative and qualitative analysis of social acts and power relations.

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