Here is the most relevant entry for “identity” in the OED (2nd edition, 1989): “The sameness of a person or thing at all times or in all circumstances; the condition or fact that a person or thing is itself and not something else; individuality, personality.”
What is identity?
This is a draft assay that I had found online from Stanford university.
I found a lot of definitions and clarifications about the word identities or identity. I have learned that these words identities or identity, both have a different definition. In this essay you can find about 14 different definitions of identity. The word identity can come from what sort of people they are or who they are related to, the social and national identity. It’s about understanding and expectations about oneself. Identity can come in the form of power rationality, democracy, ethnicity, race, the state and now politics. The word identity when researching on a deeper level can go above and beyond, which is what I’ve learnt from this assay.
This breaks down the construction of identity, social identity, role and type of identity, personal identity, explaining actions with identities.
- “how a person defines who he or she is; self-definition or self-understanding.”
- The problem of explaining what personal identity is (as we talk about it) is the problem of stating what aspects of a person it refers to and precisely in what sense these are important or “essential.”
- Recall that “identity” can mean either a social category or, in the sense of personal identity, distinguishing features of a person that form the basis of his or her dignity or self-respect.
- The OED definition will work for examples such as “a case of mistaken identity” or “the identity of the murderer,” but does not capture the meanings embodied in (for instance) “Russia’s politics now turn on a search for national identity,” or “being a professor was a crucial part of his identity.”
- most of all humanities scholars relying ever more heavily on “identity” as they explored the cultural politics of race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, citizenship, and other social categories