Identity is a cultural construct that manifests in different forms within every individual and group. Understanding culture is crucial to understand the essential context to the social lives of people and the foundations of their personality. Creating a basis where referential analysis can be conducted, the uniqueness seen in individuals is what makes up their identity. Therefore, my definition of identity is: a set of characteristics relating to labeling of groups, categories, associations and affiliations, beliefs and ideologies and personhood, that people associate themselves. In this paper, I will provide examples from the articles that illustrate the various components of my definition.
To begin, Whitehead’s (1980) ethnography of Jamaicans …show more content…
On one hand, women take charge in making a successful business from beer production. They use medicines to protect their earnings as well as distribute the wealth among family to avoid the evil phenomenon known as chitaka from occurring during kastom. On the other hand, men who are identified as economically and socially wealthy are expected to distribute the wealth to their families and offspring. Here, men must consistently check and balance between their morality (his moral duty to care for his family after being gone for so long) and individualism (establish a successful business to establish himself as a person) (Englund, 1996: …show more content…
When it comes to exploring identity, Sokefeld (1999:417) states that during fieldwork, anthropologists actively look for certain “elements that are shared with others and not to individual features”. Identify, however, is complicated because of the multiple overlapping and contradictions that can occur, even within an individual. Therefore, another strength of my definition is that it focuses on individual agency and that ability for him or her to create his or her own associations. As an example from Sokefeld (1999), Ali Hassan monitored himself and his relationship with others during his wedding visit. Although sometimes identity is forced upon people, as what happened to the Arabian-American population after 9/11 (Grewal, 2003), identity is fluid and can change. As Sokefeld (1999:430) states, “agency is characteristic of the self and the self…cannot be separated from agency and
To begin, Whitehead’s (1980) ethnography of Jamaicans …show more content…
On one hand, women take charge in making a successful business from beer production. They use medicines to protect their earnings as well as distribute the wealth among family to avoid the evil phenomenon known as chitaka from occurring during kastom. On the other hand, men who are identified as economically and socially wealthy are expected to distribute the wealth to their families and offspring. Here, men must consistently check and balance between their morality (his moral duty to care for his family after being gone for so long) and individualism (establish a successful business to establish himself as a person) (Englund, 1996: …show more content…
When it comes to exploring identity, Sokefeld (1999:417) states that during fieldwork, anthropologists actively look for certain “elements that are shared with others and not to individual features”. Identify, however, is complicated because of the multiple overlapping and contradictions that can occur, even within an individual. Therefore, another strength of my definition is that it focuses on individual agency and that ability for him or her to create his or her own associations. As an example from Sokefeld (1999), Ali Hassan monitored himself and his relationship with others during his wedding visit. Although sometimes identity is forced upon people, as what happened to the Arabian-American population after 9/11 (Grewal, 2003), identity is fluid and can change. As Sokefeld (1999:430) states, “agency is characteristic of the self and the self…cannot be separated from agency and