Modern identity studies: From structural certainty to procedural incompleteness

Abstract

The development of the problem of identity is considered in the article, mainly in the sociopsychological perspective. It is noted that although the growing interdisciplinary use of the concept of identity can be analyzed from the point of view of new restrictions and new possibilities, in any case, recent studies of identity are inextricably linked given the features of contemporary social reality, which, to the maximum extent relevant to the constant search of man’s existence, the implementation of the ongoing determination of his “I”. Attention to situational uncertainty and changeable social context leads to widespread recognition of the crisis of identifying the structures of the personality and the corresponding emphasis on the “fluid” identity of a person of “fluid” modernity, devoid of structural certainty and completeness. This research trend is considered on the basis of the example of modern versions of three traditional dichotomies in the analysis of identity: differentiation/integration, variability/ consistency and “I”/social context. It is shown that in each of these dichotomies the gradual disappearance of meaningful oppositions can be observed: a change in structure and content of definiteness in the understanding of identity and determining the regularities of its development. More and more are emerging views that reflect the procedure and probability of any of its manifestations. Stressing that such a shift in conceptualization was due to the dynamics of contemporary social space: a study of the identity of recent decades has largely been the attempt to understand how man confronts the uncertainty, multiplicity and variability of the social world.