Decentering Histories of Identity

The following three assumptions frame this chapter.* First, we fully affirm Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s assertion from the above epigraph that identity is central to “the West’s cultural archive.” Here, identity is not a single entity or concept. Rather, it overlaps and intersects with related concepts such as self, the individual, subjectivity, and consciousness – to name a few of the many labels used when speaking about issues of identity. They in concert coalesce in a signification of a sense of who we are – we as individuals and as members of collectives; with a sense of agency and belonging; and an idea of temporal stability and change. Second, we hold that moving into an unfolding of how people historically have talked about identity, and over time have come to configure a sense of who they are, will help us better understand how people talk about and make sense of themselves in contemporary discourse. In tandem, and third, we argue that a contemporaneous and historical understanding will both serve the larger and strategic purpose of this chapter to decenter what we call modern European discourses around identity and related denominations – the way they emerged as sense-making strategies over the last five centuries in metropolitan Europe, resulting in what might be called a new European sense of self. In summary, the goal is to examine