OUGD501: Studio session 3 - Identity

Identity

Today in Richards session we recapped on the Identity lecture from last thursday.

Identity & 'the other'

- Creation of identities
- Concepts of 'otherness'
- Analysis of visual example

Identity - who we are and how others perceive who we are.

We were asked to group up with a member of the class and write a list of 'what makes you you?'

-What you wear
-Hair style
-Skin colour
-Attitude
-Profession
-Beliefs
-Accent
-Background/ upbringing
-Hobbies/ interest
-Physical appearance.

As a class we discussed what we'd written and got every bodies ideas:

-Skin defects? 
-DNA
-Clothes
-Fears
-Sense of humour and personality
-Skills and abilities
-Religion and beliefs
-Background
-Social skills
-Gender
-Sexuality

We were then asked to make a list of 'How do you express your identity?'

-Hairstyle
-Religion
-Clothes
-Body language
-Mannerisms
-Hobbies/ interests
-Appearance

Here's the class list:

-Lifestyle
-Conspicuous consumption
-Physical appearance
-Job
-Profession/ vocation
-Emotional availability
-Social network - identity vs projected identity

Richard then introduced us to Jacques Lacan.

Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (13 April 1901 – 9 September 1981) was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who has been called "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud". Giving yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, Lacan influenced many leading French intellectuals in the 1960s and the 1970s, especially those associated with poststructuralism. His ideas have had a significant impact on critical theory, literary theory, 20th-century French philosophy, sociology, feminist theory, film theory and clinical psychoanalysis.

Lacan looked at the formation of identity in an infant.

When we are born we have no awareness of self - a 'hommelette' as Lacan described it.

'Mirror stage' - Lacan used this as a metaphor - Seeing self in a mirror, understands its a thing.

The mirror stage happened between 6 to 18 months, the being begins to realise it is solid, it becomes aware of ones self.

Sense of self (subjectivity) built on:

-An illusion of wholeness

-Receiving views from others.

      -For example if you smile or someone smiles, you'll get a smile in return, or getting a                                      reaction from what you wear or how you look etc.    

Constructing the 'other'

Problems: It relies on the assumption of opposition and radical otherness

The idea of otherness is being the opposite of what you are not

'I am a man because I'm not a woman'

Alterity is a philosophical term meaning "otherness", strictly being in the sense of the other of two (Latin alter). In the phenomenological tradition it is usually understood as the entity in contrast to which an identity is constructed, and it implies the ability to distinguish between self and not-self, and consequently to assume the existence of an alternative viewpoint. The concept was established by Emmanuel Lévinas in a series of essays, collected under the title Alterity and Transcendence (1999[1970]).

The term is also deployed outside of philosophy, notably in anthropology by scholars such as Nicholas Dirks, Johannes Fabian, Michael Taussig and Pauline Turner Strong to refer to the construction of "cultural others".