International Policy Commission on Social Justice

Literature Review: Community and Identity

By Dr. Caroline Paskell CASE, London School of Economics

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Contents Introduction 3 Understanding community and identity 7 The underlying dynamics 15 The shifting context of community and identity 18 Disruption and reconstitution 21 Bibliography 35

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Introduction One of the most pressing, wide-ranging issues faced by modern governments is how best to respond to the increasing diversity of society. There is broad acknowledgement that solidarities which long defined societies national, class-based, local are becoming more diffuse and less stable under contemporary pressures. The nation-state is no longer held to be clearly bounded, cohesive or fully autonomous (Sassen, 1998, 1996; Biswas, 2002). Social class is seen to have a reduced significance as a determinant of political and social allegiance (Tonkiss, 2006) and the importance of place in social relations is queried in a time of cyber-networks and easy travel (Bauman, 1998: 77-102; Mills, 2002). Yet as long-established bases of solidarity are weakened, others are emerging: aspects of identity that can transcend or subvert the national, the economic and the local. In particular, the significance of ethnicity, faith, homeland or original nationality has increased as mass migration brings demographic diversity and prompts new understandings of distinct and shared identities. Globalisation of economic practices, political aspirations, culture and communications has also fostered alternative self-definitions and groups as people respond to its problems and opportunities. Anti-globalisation and environmental protection movements are among the most obvious new solidarities (Conway, 2004; Castells, 2000). But the international exchange of people, practices and ideas that globalisation entails has also brought significance and support to identities that were previously marginalised (as with gay rights movements) and facilitated the creation of entirely new cultural and social networks between disparate people. The ease of communication has also galvanised the association with single-issue campaigns such as the

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pro-hunt lobby in Britain or the many national protests against the military campaign in Iraq. Thus governments are dealing not only with the fragmentation of traditional links but also with the shifting sands of new, often transient, but significant communities of identity and interest (Crow, 2002; Alcoff et al, 2006). Particularly prominent in current political discussions are those groups whose heritage and cultures are distinctively different from the national majority. So-called race riots in Australia, Britain and France, the emergence of home-grown anti-Western terrorists within Europe, debates over religious clothing and the practice of traditions such as forced marriages which run counter to the national sensibilities have all prompted scrutiny of how governments ought to respond to cultural and religious diversity. Yet it is not only such debates over assimilation and multiculturalism, however, which highlight the dynamics of fragmentation and consolidation running through contemporary society. Whilst class-based politics may not be as substantial as in the recent past, there are still significant identity fault-lines for governments to navigate (Dunn, 1998). The provision of group-differentiated legal rights (Mitnick, 2006) and use of positive discrimination in employment (Kymlicka, 1995) heighten the significance of distinctions between people, even as efforts are made to promote equality (Phillips, 1999). Crime-control strategies that bear more heavily on young people (often male, often also ethnic minorities), even as they reassure the public, both reveal and propagate divisions based on age, gender or ethnicity (Hawkins et al, 2003; Hughes and Edwards, 2002). And whilst the salience of gender as a basis for political solidarity has diminished, it is nevertheless still central to some socio-political groups: clusters of mothers campaigning against drugs and gun crime (widespread in America and Britain) and Fathers for Justice campaigns for men who feel marginalised by child custody arrangements are two notable examples.

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At the same time as governments are contending with such internal plurality, so nation-states are under pressure from supra-national organisations and sub-national identification. Institutions such as the European Union and the International Monetary Fund are perceived as threatening the role of the nation, constraining its sovereignty by imposing edicts (see Stiglitz, 2002, Ranis et al, 2006 on the IMF and World Bank) or by addressing sub-national entities (see Lachapelle and Paquin, 2005 on the rising significance of sub-states in a globalising world). The salience of the sub-national is also increasing as peoples respond to the ideals of self-determination that the West itself promulgated, catalysing shifts such as devolution in Britain and the recognition of Quebec as a nation within Canada1. In addition, the dislocation of finance from national control, the power of multi-national corporations and the growth of telecommunications are seen as reducing the states salience even as they promote cities or regions:

More and more money power and communicative power have been able to replace state authority based on administrative power with a discursive authority based in electronic networks and particular world cities. (Leyshon & Thrift, 1997: 321)

Although theorists now tend to steer away from predicting an end to nation-states (cf Ohmae, 1996), there is broad agreement that global consolidation and internal differentiation are disrupting national autonomy and cohesion (Sassen, 1996; Godfrey and Unger, 2004). In tracing these shifts, analysts draw attention to the social impact of international migration. Academics across the political spectrum cite the increasing rate of migration and the visibility of immigrant populations as catalysing differentiation. Whatever the economic, ethical or political interpretation of migration, academic analyses

1 In November 2006, Canadas Prime Minister backed the motion that the House of Commons should recognise that Quebecois constitute a nation within a united Canada (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6174986.stm)

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6174986.stm

note that the prevalence of distinctive minorities has significant societal ramifications as nations negotiate internal dynamics of diversity and unity (Delanty and Kumar, 2006; Beatley, 2004; Berger, 1998).

Our world, and our lives, are being shaped by the conflicting trends of globalization and identity. The information technology revolution, and the restructuring of capitalism, have induced a new form of society, the network society. This new form of social organisation, in its pervasive globality, is diffusing throughout the world. But this is not the whole story. Along with the technological revolution, the transformation of capitalism, and the demise of statism, we have experienced, in the last quarter of the century, the widespread surge of powerful expressions of collective identity that challenge globalization and cosmopolitanism on behalf of cultural singularity and peoples control over their lives and environment. (Castells, 1997: 2)

As Castells outlines, concepts of identity and community are central to understanding these changes. Indeed, as this review of the literature will show, the navigation of identity and community is central to the plurality of contemporary society. The concepts are closely linked, with identity both derived from and defining community. This relationship has been described as the negotiation of belonging, linking between the individual and the collective: individuals identify with a certain type of community and communities see and construct themselves as containers for individual belonging (Christiansen and Hedetoft, 2004: 2). The review is intended to offer readers an insight into how belonging is negotiated under contemporary conditions, rather than how community and identity are affected individually. The review begins by outlining the features of the two concepts in order to establish underlying principles of belonging, and the related dynamics of solidarity and fragmentation. The subsequent discussion sets these abstract concepts in the current context to trace the dominant forms and key changes in identity and community. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of how governments might respond.

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Understanding identity and community Key characteristics of identity

Identity can be understood as self-definition; it is used to classify others, but its primary significance lies in defining the self. The psychology of identity-formation is beyond the remit of the review (Ct and Levine, 2002 provide overview), but it is important to understand that it is not simply acquired but constructed in complex ways that give the person meaning. In Modernity and Self-Identity, Giddens (1991) identifies identity-construction as a trajectory along which an individual establishes their own meaning. This reflexive project of the self consists in the sustaining of coherent, yet continuously revised, biographical narratives (1991: 5). Castells states that its internal meaning distinguishes identity from roles that people occupy (mother, worker, etc.): identities organise the meaning while roles organize the functions (1997: 7). Roles can bring meaning but only if they are internalised, in which case they become an aspect of the identity. This distinction shows that self-identity is not directly equivalent to external identification by others. Yet identity is affected by external categories. People may not base their self-definition on classification by role, but they do define themselves against categories. Group identity contributes to comparisons of similarity and difference, but other building-blocks used in identity-formation are not essentially about groups (e.g. age, gender). Membership is therefore not the sole basis of identity but it contributes greatly (Brown and Capozza, 2006; No, 2005). External classifications also help to shape identity through the views of others. Opinions and classifications may be rejected, but they contextualise an individuals understanding of themselves and so, even if dismissed, help shape self-perceptions (Ct and Levine, 2002). Thus, identity is always a joint product, resulting both from individual and societal classifications and from the interpretations of others.

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This project is ongoing: identity is not settled but involves constant negotiation of the self in society. Bauman has described it as something one needs to build from scratch or to chose from alternative offers and then to struggle for and then to protect through yet more struggle (2004: 16). Thus identity can be viewed as a (temporary) fusion of definitions ascribed by others and internalised by the person. Theorists trace varied influences on identity-construction: Erikson (1959, 1982) highlighted the shaping role of the life-course; Goffman (1971, 1972) focused on the negotiation of identity in face-to-face relations; and recent research has considered factors as diverse as ethnicity and gender (Alcoff, 2006), nation (Migdal, 2004), neighbourhood (Savage et al, 2005) and language (Meinhof and Galasinski, 2005). None of these theorists, however, would posit that any one factor is the only influence. There is no single element of identity; it is multi-faceted. Bauman highlights this layered or multiple nature of identity by beginning his volume Identity with descriptions of his own European-British-Polish fusion and his colleagues observation that as a woman, a Hungarian, a Jew, an American, a philosopher, she was saddled with rather too many identities for one person. [Yet] she could easily extend the list (2004: 13). Bauman admits he and his colleague have particularly complex identities, but asserts that most of us have similar trouble with [the] coherence of whatever distinguishes us as persons (ibid). The detailed depictions of father and son which open Sennetts 1998 work also illuminate the complexity of identity: the father straddl[ing] the worlds of his old immigrant community and his new suburban-neutral life two identities from the same [source] (1998: 16-17); the son developing a more multi-faceted identity with frequent changes of job and home. Giddens (1991) highlights the multiplicity of identity in tracing its

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constant revision, as people work to bring cohesion to the many, shifting, parts. The works of many other academics support these depictions of identity as fluid and multi-faceted (see Dunn, 1998; Tehranian and Lum, 2006; and Bernd, 2004 for overviews). Yet despite this evidence (and academics emphasis on acknowledging this complexity in trying to understand the individual), political and policy analyses often treat identity as singular, static, definitive. In some cases, efforts to engage or to address particular identity groups obscure the diversity within them; in other cases, the diversity is intentionally obscured in order to emphasise or catalyse unity. Whilst flattening the contours of identity to concentrate on single traits does reflect the categorisations made by people as they navigate society (classifying others as women, Asians or young people), it is increasingly subject to critique as a policy approach. In his 2006 work Identity and Violence, Amartya Sen asserts that such simplification is potentially dangerous in that it casts people as belonging to distinct groups without attending to the layering of group memberships. This is dangerous rather than simply wrong, he explains, because it allows for greater divisions between people than would an emphasis on the cross-cutting, inter-related and fluid nature of identities. Sens work focuses on British multiculturalism and the political promotion of religious identity over other facets, but his core idea applies more widely:

Being defined by one group identity over all others, overlooking whether youre working class or capitalist, left or right, what your language group is or your literary tastes are, all that interferes with peoples freedom to make their own choices.

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Key characteristics of community Despite its widespread use, the notion of community is nebulous. Places and groups are commonly referred to as communities, but the term connotes more than geography or assembly. Community entails association, specifically association with a sense of attachment (Amit, 2002), yet this is common to other social relationships. Noting that theorists tend not to state what makes community distinctive, Mason suggests that a group of people [is] a community only when each recognizes the other as belonging to it (2000: 25). Again, many groups consist of recognised members, so the distinctive character of community is not recognition but, as Mason notes, a deeper psychological link of belonging (see also Delanty, 2003, 2004; Beatley, 2004). As community is primarily about belonging, its relations exist primarily for their own sake, although they can be directed towards an end. This sets community apart from associations in which social capital (trust and shared values, Putnam, 1993) is used to enable people to co-operate for mutual advantage (Field, 2003: 12). For community, at least in theory, social capital is secondary rather than integral to relations. As Baumans 2001 volume on community elucidates, community arises from the fact not the function of association. Thus a simple description could be given of community as group association distinguished by a sense of belonging and non-functional relations. Defining it beyond this is difficult, as the associations on which it is premised are diverse and mutable (Delanty, 2003; Mason, 2000). Nevertheless, five core forms should be noted: local, spatial, abstract, positive and conflictual community. Community as local This is a particularly prevalent understanding. It typically refers to residential areas, but is not directly synonymous with neighbourhood as community has a sense of association rather than proximity alone. Tnnies asserted this in

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his 1887 delineation of community (Gemeinschaft). His definition was based not only on the scale of community but on its relations being pursued for their own sake, as distinct from the functional links through which he saw society (Gesellschaft) operating (Tnnies, 1957). Contemporary references to community as local do not always refer to distinct places with such close internal relations, but they do nevertheless imply this. Community as spatial Despite Tnnies specification of community as distinctively local, the concept is now also used to indicate association at any spatial scale. The recalibration of community has meant that, whilst place is still regarded as potentially constitutive, proximity and the local are no longer seen as necessary conditions. Town, region, nation and beyond may constitute community if they foster a sense of belonging (see Christensen and Levinson, 2003, for collected papers on different spatial scales of community). As with reference to local community, the term is now commonly used even if internal relations are primarily functional, as long as they entail a sense of belonging beyond simple association. Community as abstract Disengaging community from local indicated that it can arise without face-to-face relations, and this forced recognition of community based on shared identity rather than space. Andersons (19832) showed that ideas of national community which sustain nationalism are imagined communities. These remembered or invoked nations are communities, Anderson states, because in the minds of each [member] lives the image of their communion (2006: 6). Recasting community as a mental rather than spatial construct, premised on identification rather than proximity, galvanised research into ethnicity, religion, 2 The Second Edition published in 2006 retains these original findings, with additional work on the salience of nation

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culture and sexuality, among other identities, as bases for community (Day, 2006). Recognition of abstract communities has become commonplace in contemporary society; ideas of a gay community, Asian community and faith communities are particularly well-established, but the term is also used with other collectives, including virtual networks established online. Community as positive Referring to associations, abstract or local, as community often implies that they are positive. Tnnies asserted that the expression bad Gemeinschaft violates the meaning of the word (1957: 34) and even now Community, we feel, is always a good thing (Bauman, 2001: 1). Its conjunction with other concepts makes them more positive; with community policing, for example, reference to community serves not only to locate policing on the streets of residential neighbourhoods but also to represent police in a positive light (Fielding, 1995). There is also a more specific understanding of community as positive: a moralised conception, as Mason (2000) terms it, of community as a channel for delivering positive social change. This is the conception on which communitarians such as Etzioni (1993, 1996, 1995), Tam (1988), Selznick (2002, 1994) and MacIntyre (1985) have developed agendas for shoring up the moral, social and political environment (Etzioni, 1993: 247). Communitarians, and those with similar perspectives but who might resist the communitarian label3, see community as providing a stable foundation for the proper functioning of society. They do not claim that it always delivers, but they define it in terms of this potential (see Shlomo and de-Shalit, 1992: 4-9 for prcis). This perspective has been critiqued for failing to note communitys heterogeneity, dynamics, porous boundaries and conflict, although its advocates guard against a tendency to eulogise (Little, 2002: 201).

3 For example, Drucker, 2003; Little, 2002; Hesselbein et al, 1998. See Little (2002) and Mason (2000) for discussion of the breadth of communitarian and associated ideas of community.

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Community as conflictual Communitarian and everyday notions of positive community need to be set against evidence of friction and negative dynamics within local communities, and clashes between communities. Research such as Sibleys work (1995) on abstract geographies of exclusion and Fensters delineation (2005) of how religious edicts intersect with gender in neighbourhoods reveal social and spatial processes through which people are marginalised or undermined in communities. At a local level, conspicuous community divisions include clashes between residents of different ethnicities or mobilisations against paedophiles, but more subtle exclusionary dynamics have been uncovered: see for example British research into the experiences of young and elderly people (Walklate, 1998; Pain et al, 2005), of new residents and immigrants (Evans, 1997; Robinson and Reeve, 2006) and the dynamics surrounding community organisations (Forrest and Kearns, 1999). Hoggett (1997) provides particularly useful insights into the contested, conflictual nature of community in neighbourhoods. Non-local and abstract communities can also be divisive: fostering clashes with others, as nationalism-based conflicts demonstrate; or differentiating between members, perhaps on the basis of how they conform to the dominant identity, as Twine (1999) traces among white mothers in the British black community. Whether local or abstract, the very constitution of community makes it unstable; as Crow (2002) notes in his work on solidarity, being composed of individuals means that community is innately fissiparous. In summary, understandings of community have evolved from a notion of cohesive local association to a much broader conception of multi-level associations premised on shared identity rather than shared space. This reappraisal of community has also revealed frictions, divisions and negative

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consequences entwined with the more positive dynamics of association. Acknowledging the complexity of relations and dissociations that constitute community has prompted something of a divide in academic understanding, with some focusing on the positive potential of community and others sceptical of such interpretations.

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The underlying dynamics: belonging, solidarity and fragmentation This brief outline of identity and community has defined the core characteristics of each. The review now turns from discussing these as separate entities. Identity can be discussed as distinct from community because some forms derive from categories (such as gender or age) that are collective but not communal. Community, however, results from shared identity, from people identifying (rather than simply associating) with others. Thus it makes little sense to assess one as distinct from the other. Instead, this review will consider the interactions between them. These interactions may operate in two directions: consolidating, if identity fosters community; or dividing, if identity undermines association. Three dynamics can be discerned along these axes: belonging (consolidating); fragmenting (divisive); solidarity (consolidating some communal associations, but potentially divisive of others). Belonging can be understood as interaction of individual and communal identity: Belonging implies that individuals identify with a certain type of community and, conversely, that communities see and construct themselves as containers for individual belonging (Christiansen and Hedetoft, 2004: 2). This idea of belonging as a dynamic relationship between the individual and the communal is echoed in the concept of elective belonging advanced by Savage et al. (2005) in their work on peoples attachment to place: Belonging is not to a fixed community, with the implication of closed boundaries, but is more fluid, seeing places as sites for performing identities (2005: 29). Whilst this work focused on local association, the observation applies to other communities belonging follows when communal identity matches or allows for the expression of individual identity. The overviews of identity and community given above suggest that belonging: will be multi-dimensional, as peoples various identities will expose them to more than one community; will be fluid and open to revision, as a persons internal orientation or their external

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situation changes; and could be contested, as membership is fostered, compromised or constrained by inclusionary and exclusionary dynamics running through community. Solidarity is often viewed as a side-effect or constituent part of community because communal identity offers the deeper sense of belonging, rather than simply being (Crow, 2002). Brunkhorst (2005) aims to disentangle solidarity from its often-theorised relationship with community and to replace it with an understanding of the bond between strangers, but the existence of a diffuse solidarity such as he sets out does not exclude the possibility of solidarity arising through community. If communal belonging gave rise to both a factual level of actual common ground between the individuals and a normative level of mutual obligations to aid each other (Bayertz, 1999: 3), this would constitute solidarity. This is not to say that solidarity would arise, but that communal identity provides a basis for it (at least short-term, Crow, 2002: 71-89). Other collective but not communal identities, such as gender and age, may also foster solidarity and give rise to opposition but these bases of differentiation are not the subject of this review because: they are not newly-significant; they have reduced significance relative to communal identities; and they are increasingly entwined with the newly powerful forms of communal identity. Fragmentation exists in the tension between the individual and community indeed with all collectives and between communities. It derives from the fact that what can constitute support may also become suppression. As Durkheim highlighted with his concept of mechanical solidarity4, collectives based on likeness both affirm an individuals collective identity and obscure their individual identity. Collectives may catalyse fragmentation by marginalising or

4 Set out in The Division of Labour in Society (see Durkheim, 1984 for selected writings)

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frustrating expression of individual identity. Society is too diverse for mechanical solidarity to operate but communities, which are based on shared identity if not homogeneity, could constrain individual expression even as they reinforce communal identity. Tendencies to fragmentation also exist at the group level, between smaller collectives or communities or within larger associations such as the nation (Alperson, 2002). The inherent instability of communal association based on identity is clearly elucidated by Bauman (2004: 76-77):

Yes, identity is a double-edged sword. It may be a war-cry of individuals or of the communities that wish to be imagined by them. At one time the edge of identity is turned against collective pressures by individuals who resent conformity At another time it is the group that turns the edge against a larger group that is accused of a wish to devour or destroy it Identity is a simultaneous struggle against dissolution and fragmentation.

This complexity and flux the simultaneous forces of belonging, solidarity, opposition, fragmentation present difficulties for governments in managing increasingly plural societies. As diversity increases, so do the range of local, national, international communities to which people feel a sense of belonging, or define themselves in opposition. A proliferation of identities makes yet more complex the dynamics of solidarity and fragmentation running through society. The remainder of the review shows how these dynamics of belonging and fragmentation are impacting on society. The overview begins by outlining how the context has changed under forces of globalisation, the reconstruction of capitalism, the mass migration of people and ideas, and the development of the network society of information technology and the virtual realm.

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The shifting context of identity and community

The modern world is a runaway world: not only is the pace of social change much faster than in any prior system, so also is its scope, and the profoundness with which it affects pre-existing social practices and modes of behaviour. (Giddens, 1991: 16; original italics)

In Giddens analysis, the modern era is characterised by extensive shifts in most aspects of society: pace and timescales; expectations, possibilities and risks; the significance of place and distance. Whilst other theorists refer to the contemporary condition as postmodern (Lyon, 1999) and specifics of the onset5, extent and form of societal change are debated, there is broad agreement that widespread change has occurred and is ongoing. For Giddens (1991, 2002), this has arisen from the interaction of globalising influences and personal dispositions. For Sennett (1998), it is the new capitalism which catalysed this broad transformation of society. The socio-political realignment caused by the end of the Cold War is identified as a driving force by many analysts. Others have traced the contribution of communication technology in reshaping society (Mills, 2002). Castells analysis of the growth of the virtual and the proliferation and power of networks is possibly the most comprehensive (Castells, 2000), but others have provided detailed studies of specific aspects: the dislocation of financial-power from territory (Barnes, 1996); the way new geographical hierarchies have been fostered as the significance of distance falls (Sassen, 2002). Analysts have also drawn attention to how, in reducing the constraints of territory, space and distance, these shifts have galvanised mass migration,

5 The observation that modern society is distinguished by constant change was, of course, apparent in Marx and Engels analysis that Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones (The Communist Manifesto, 1850)

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prompting a demographic and cultural re-distribution that constitutes one of the most extensive changes in recent social history (Hesse, 2000). The extent to which this shifting context has affected both identity and community is made clear in Christiansen and Hedetofts assertion that There is little doubt that most of the new developments in the field of identity and belonging are a direct or indirect consequence of globalization (2004: 11). Whether the catalyst is primarily understood as globalisation, political and capitalist reconfigurations, information technology or mass migration, theorists agree that these societal shifts have impacted on identity and community at all levels from the international to the individual (Lucik and Brint, 2001; Giddens, 2002; Tonkiss, 2006). In particular, the increased demographic and cultural diversity that they brought have prompted many to review ideas of national identity and community, catalysing debates over citizenship, assimilation and multiculturalism (Godfrey and Unger, 2004). But it is not only visible diversity that has called into question long-standing notions of nation, community and the self. Greater mobility of domestic populations, decline in industrial bases of solidarity, concern at the influence and homogenising potential of multi-national corporations, interest in regional or sub-national heritage and autonomy, increased individualisation and (apparently contradictory) increased participation in social movements, all these are also acknowledged in the literature as having affected identity and community. The direction of these changes is not consistent. Before tracing the specific impacts on the individual, community and nation, it is important to establish that the general pattern is one of cross-cutting, even contradictory, trends of disruption and reconstitution. Baumans analysis of globalisation (in his terms, time/space compression) captures the inconsistent and oppositional consequences of the broad shifts. In asserting that globalisation divides as

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much as it unites; it divides as it unites (1998: 2), he reveals the undercurrent of instability against which people are seeking to define themselves and associate with others. He concludes that globalisation is predominantly divisive, generating more division than unity, rather than homogenizing the human condition, the technological annulment of temporal/spatial distances

tends to polarize it (ibid: 18; original italics). But his analysis also highlights dynamics of fusion which are at play. Processes of hybridisation and connection accompany frictions and fragmentation the drift to neo-tribal and fundamentalist tendencies. Taken in conjunction with his volumes on identity (2004) and community (2001), Baumans analysis elucidates how, even as they disrupt established forms, the forces can also engender new identities and associations or raise the profile of those which had been marginal.

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Disruption and reconstitution: Current dynamics of belonging, solidarity and fragmentation

The review now turns to outline specific consequences of these shifts for individuals, communities and nations. Although the literature and examples mostly refer to European and Anglophone nations, the consequences discussed are among the most pervasive, prominent or problematic and can be expected to have relevance within other countries affected by the shifts laid out above. At the level of the individual

The reorientation of politics towards issues of identity reflects a growing mood of uncertainty arising from economic insecurity, social and cultural change, worsening inequality, a perception of moral decay and a sense of threatened social disintegration. (Dunn, 1998: 17)

Much attention has been paid to assessing how these societal transitions have affected personal identity. Christiansen and Hedetoft describe globalisation as having prompted people to revise their identities in a search for some measure of order, transparency and control of their lives (2004: 2). Whether the project of self-identity can still deliver personal coherence under these conditions is a pressing question. In his analysis of the current identity crisis, Dunn traces how the post-modern condition of globalising society makes processes of identity-formation both more important and more difficult. Identity grows in significance, Dunn observes, as people become concerned about their position in a rapidly changing society. But the very shifts that catalyse peoples engagement with issues of identity, and engagement in identity politics, also serve to destabilise the individuals sense of identity. This observation echoes that of Giddens in his analysis of modernity: the sheer sense of being caught up in massive

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waves of global transformation is perturbing [such that identity] crises become more or less endemic (1991: 184). People can no longer adopt established identities as occurred, he claims, in cultures where things stayed more or less the same from generation to generation (ibid: 33); nor can people easily construct stable identities of their own in a runaway world where they are exposed to a degree of cultural and socio-economic diversity unmatched in any previous era (Giddens, 2002). Other theorists share this concern over how the modern order affects individuals sense of identity and coherence. For Bauman, globalisation and rampant individualization have made identities into mixed blessings: In a liquid modern setting of life, identities are perhaps the most common, most acute, most deeply felt and troublesome incarnations of ambivalence. This is, I would argue, why they are firmly placed at the very heart of individuals attention (2004: 32; original italics). For Sennett, changes in capitalism, intertwined with globalisation, have corroded identity. He asserts that life is qualitatively different now in the complexity and flux of peoples relations to work, to neighbourhood and to others, shifts he attributes to capitalisms disdain for the virtues of stability, routine or long-term employment:

Enrico [the father] had a narrative for his life, linear and cumulative. Rico [the son] lives in a world marked instead by short-term flexibility and flux; this world does not offer much either economically or socially, in the way of narrative. Ricos experiences with time, place and work are not unique; neither is his emotional response. The conditions of time in the new capitalism have created a conflict between character and experience, the experience of disjointed time threatening the ability of people to form their characters into sustained narratives. (Sennett, 1998: 30-31)

Identity is always fluid, of course, as was noted in the depiction of its key characteristics above. Nevertheless, the mobility of individuals within a changing society in a globalising world has brought far greater flux (hall,

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1996). As Sennett describes, the multiple shifts have also made self-identity somewhat incoherent. The traditional model of a nested identity the self within specific roles and defined by relations to a single community no longer holds under such change and variety. Therefore the contemporary challenge for the individual is to weld a sense of self from an indefinite range of possibilities (Giddens, 1991: 189). This is not impossible, but does require that the person can make use of diversity in order to positively incorporat[e] elements from different settings into an integrated narrative (ibid.: 190). Giddens refers to such a person, who draws strength from being at home in a variety of contexts (ibid.), as cosmopolitan and the term anticipates the politics of multiple belonging that are now coming to the fore in discussions of personal identity. Introducing an edited collection on the politics of multiple belonging, Christiansen and Hedetoft state that these arise from the multiple landscape of fast-changing, overlapping and porous identity constr-uctions/debates which globalization in its many permutations has been instrumental in placing on the public and academic agenda (2004: 1-2). Academic and policy interest in the plural nature of identity, its politics and its potential conflicts, has certainly increased in recent years, fostered in part by attacks on the apparently hegemonic Western identity (from without and within) that belied hopes of universal stability (Fukuyama, 1992) and undermined ideas of national cohesion. The ensuing analysis has shown that the problems of unstable identity experienced by the individual actually make links to community all the more important a protective response (McBride, 2005) even as exact forms of communal association and solidarity alter

It was evident [among displaced peoples] that even if communities their boundaries and reassuring qualities are contested, the notion of community remains a directive factor in peoples daily lives, even in, or especially in, its absence. (Lammers, 2005: 624)

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At the level of community

For the first two-thirds of the twentieth century a powerful tide bore Americans into ever deeper engagement in the life of their communities, but a few decades ago that tide reversed Without at first noticing, we have been pulled apart from one another and from our communities over the last third of the century. (Putnam, 2000: 29)

Putnams work The Collapse and Revival of American Community is a particularly well-known investigation of the apparent decline (but predicted revival) of community in America. Putnam found that, whilst communal association is not irrecoverable, its informal and civic forms have greatly diminished in both extent and vitality. Similar conclusions have been drawn about other forms of traditional community: place-based community (the neighbourhood) and class-based solidarity. These associations are seen as becoming less common, and less extensive and durable where they do exist (Hopper, 2003; Young and Lemos, 1997; Hayter and Harvey, 1993). Increasingly, however, academics are asserting that communal association itself has not diminished but has altered form as communication technologies, mobility and migration combine to produce new collectives, disrupt old categories and reconstitute populations. Theorists such as Young and Lemos (1997) assert that local community has been lost, but the weight of recent literature on local association indicates that the change has been more subtle. Increased mobility has made for transient neighbourhoods, within which it is difficult to foster the long-term associations that were credited to local communities in the past. However, mobility has not undermined place-based community altogether but rather has shifted relations between neighbours from something akin to obligation to a more optional association. It is clear that place still matters; as research by Savage et al

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(2005) among others indicates, people do still view their neighbourhood as an important constituent of their lives. However, associations which develop from this common ground are not especially influential in identity-formation; rather they serve to reinforce established identities. What has happened is that, as increased mobility reduces the duration of residents local involvement, people tend to associate with neighbourhoods that fit them, rather than deriving aspects of their identity from the neighbourhood. Savage et al. term this elective belonging. Sennetts delineation of the lives of father and son, outlined above, supports this, tracing how identification with long-term residential areas (the fathers experience) changes to short-term association with a series of suitable neighbourhoods (the sons) (Sennett, 1998). Thus the local community is no longer predominantly where a person becomes a long-term witness to another persons life (ibid: 21), but rather where they develop limited local ties to neighbours like them. The development of elective belonging has raised concern that populations will become more divided, with a global elite opting for suitable communities and a static majority entrenched in communities where they are at relative social, economic and physical disadvantage. Bauman has emphasised social justice implications of differential mobility: Elites travel faster than ever before [whilst] the rest of the population finds itself cut off, forced to pay the heavy cultural, psychological and political price of their new isolation (1998: 19, 21). Other critiques of globalisation and of capitalism have likewise asserted that peoples relations to place are increasingly divisive liberating for a minority, constraining for the majority but Castells (who is sympathetic to such concerns) has argued that this ignores the massive migrations of even the poorest people. Castells does agree that only an elite specialty labor force, of great strategic importance, is truly globalized and for the huddled masses of the world labour is local, constrained by national borders,

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institutions and xenophobia (2000: 130-131). Nevertheless, he asserts, migration is an option taken by millions of those without exceptional skills, but with the stamina, or desperation, to improve their living conditions and to fight for their childrens future (ibid: 130). Of course, mass migration raises social justice issues of its own, but it is too simple, Castells reminds his peers, to view the world as divided into a mobile elite and a static mass, compromised by their relation to community. Degrees of immobility are an issue, however, in the involuntary marginalisation or voluntary separation from mainstream society. Social exclusion dynamics of economic, political and social marginalisation (Hills et al., 2002) affects areas as well as individuals and households (Lupton and Power, 2002). They tend to have higher crime, poor environments and services, and fewer opportunities than mainstream areas, from which they are often distinguished by stigma and residential choice. This differentiation is a worldwide phenomenon, fostered by capitalist innovation (Smith, 1996) and more entrenched under conditions of rapid development, economic downturn or laissez-faire policy (Wilson, 1997). The social and market forces that make such areas distinctive can also reinforce differentiation by making local identification an obstacle to accessing wider society. Thus, whilst area/neighbourhood effects are debated6, it is agreed that identification with an excluded community may constrain people, even if it fosters their self-identity and aids local relations. In some cases this occurs because locals believe or non-locals demonstrate that the communal identity limits residents opportunities outside the area. In others, locals actively choose only to work in and associate with their community. Often both apply, especially for young adults who are starting out in employment and moving into mature social roles

6 In Britain although not in America. The argument against holds that correlations between problems (such as poor health) and the neighbourhood are actually a consequence of population composition not area effects (Lupton, 2003).

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(as parents etc.). Local social exclusion can therefore entail a constraining identification with community. Voluntary social isolation also raises issues relating to identification with community. Barry (1998) defines social isolation as the phenomenon of non-participation in a societys mainstream institutions (of which the involuntary form is social exclusion). If a group chooses to disengage, then their action, Barry argues, undermines social solidarity. Two sets of socially isolated groups can be distinguished: those with comprehensive isolation from the wider society (such as American Amish communities); and those whose isolation is partial (such as immigrants who have not learnt the national language; faith believers who engage almost entirely with co-religionists; environmentalists in communes; travellers in itinerant collectives; even, in Barrys conception, residents of gated communities (although they may otherwise engage fully with society, Blakely and Snyder, 1999). For each, social isolation is facilitated by the spatial clustering of similar others. Such doubly-detached collectives foster strong communal identities, but at a cost to social integration. Whether or not their separation is cause for concern is a matter for public and political discussion in each society, but this voluntary form of isolation needs to be included in analyses of how identification with communities impacts on society. This is particularly important in the current context, when the communities with which people identify most intensely are not those of their local area but rather those based on shared heritage, culture, aspirations or beliefs. There are many factors that have resulted in primary identification shifting from local to abstract communities. The increase in mobility and extensive migration that has made links with place-based community an option also made ethnic and cultural diversity far more apparent. Exposure to diverse

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group identities therefore increased as local identities became less durable and self-identity less readily resolved. In addition, advancements in communication technologies and the growth of the internet made formerly distant associations and diffuse identities far more accessible. In combination, these factors have not only diminished the primacy of local association but also catalysed identification with communities of identity, whether the association is with an abstract community based on shared ideals (such as environmentalism), shared religious beliefs, shared ethnic heritage or other perceived similarity. The proliferation and increased significance of such abstract communities have contributed to shifts in the forms of solidarity most prevalent within society. This diversification of belonging has cut across traditional solidarity of social class (or other socio-economic classification, for cross-cultural discussions see Oesch, 2006; Seabrook, 2002; Devine, 1997); although class still is important in personal identity. Skeggs (2004) and Andersen et al (2006) are among those who note that the declining political salience of class has not been mirrored in its social significance (see also Devine et al., 2005). A recent survey of British public opinion supports this, finding that class contributes to identity but no longer offers a template for social or political solidarity: Class identity is as important to people in Britain today as it was in the 1960s yet it is no longer related to a distinctive set of values (NatCen, 2007: 2). In other nations, socio-economic status catalyses greater political allegiance and social solidarity, but class association has everywhere been disrupted to some extent by the diversification of communal identity. In recognition of this, academics have traced the interaction and layering of associations based on class, race, ethnicity and gender (see Healey, 2006 for an overview of analyses) and, more recently, religion. Whilst gender rarely

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offers a basis for community per se it is evident that race, ethnicity and faith often serve as catalysts for community. The literature shows that ethnicity and faith in particular have become key axes of belonging within our rapidly diversifying societies. For those displaced by famine or conflict (Lammers, 2005), who voluntarily migrated or who were born into societies with other dominant ethnicities or faiths, these identities are especially influential in giving a sense of belonging (for example see Reynolds, 2006; Brown and Talbot, 2006; Eade and Garbin, 2006). The literature also shows how complex these identities are in their relations to the national identity, and to the imagined community on which they draw. Christiansen and Hedetofts (2004) collection of papers illuminates this; see also Keaton (1999) and Juge and Perez (2006) for detailed analyses of this layering, and its potential conflict. A less-commonly noted but extensive shift in forms of community has come through the development of virtual networks. These have massively extended the membership and impact of social movements (as with recent anti-Iraq war marches and earlier anti-capitalist/anti-globalisation protests; see Conway, 2004). They have also fostered entirely new associations, most strikingly with the creation of an entire world in Second Life7 which currently has over three million residents. Bauman is among many who note that online associations are far less substantial than the traditional communities that people may hope they replicate: electronically mediated, frail virtual totalities, easy to enter and easy to abandon. They are hardly a valid substitution for the solid, and pretending to be yet more solid, forms of togetherness (2004: 24-25). Yet these emergent associations do compare with the more established forms in their internal dynamics. Academics who investigate the virtual realm have found in the online networks not only new forms of belonging but also the hierarchies, politics and frictions of communities everywhere (Girard and Siochr, 2003; Mills, 2002). Pini et als (2004) analysis of an online

7 http://secondlife.com/whatis/

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http://secondlife.com/whatis/

discussion forum is a succinct example of this; they find that the internet offers a channel for the political voice and activism of a dispersed community (women in Australias outback), but one which still features the stratification, conflict and dynamics of marginalisation attendant on all communities. This is relevant for government in that it reveals how exclusionary dynamics witnessed in society cannot automatically be bypassed with greater digital inclusion (Cammaerts et al., 2003). Thus, as with local communities, abstract communities can foster solidarity but also bring dynamics of fragmentation. Most obvious are those which disrupt other forms of community, such as the flaring of ethnic tensions within neighbourhoods or the cross-cutting of class affiliations by political movements around other identities (such as gay-rights). Concern over this potential to spark wider fragmentation is a major catalyst for public and political discussions of diversity, multiculturalism and national identity, issues to which this paper will return below. However, the public discussions perhaps too readily focus on frictions between communities, rather than the complex dynamics within them. Twines (1999) paper on the role of white mothers in British black families traces the divisions that run through communities of identity and place; her work shows the hierarchies or marginalisation that set white mothers at a disadvantage in these communities. Likewise, in his analysis of how womens use of public space is constrained by religious edicts in orthodox neighbourhoods, Fenster (2005) illuminates tensions that arise within communities. These are isolated examples but they reflect a universal characteristic of local or abstract community: because it is not truly homogenous, the layered identities within it may conflict.

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At the level of the nation The significance of this complexity is perhaps most readily observed at the national level. The nation is an identity itself, of course, but increased engagement with sub-national identities and the development of transnational identities have combined to lessen its ability to define the individual (Christiansen and Hedetoft, 2004). Re-defining nationals in terms of sub-national (NatCen, 2007; Beland and Lecours, 2006; Kiely, 2005), indigenous (Igoe, 2006) or transnational identities (Hermann et al., 2004) not only undermines the defining power of the nation, but also exposes and amplifies the multiplicity of identities that exist below the surface of any nation. National identity still matters, and can galvanise under real or perceived threats (see Gifford, 2006, Polat, 2006 and Vetik, 2006 for accounts of how European Union integration has sparked reactive national identification in Britain, Turkey and Estonia; and see Kaldor, 2004 for analysis of the more universal wave of nationalism catalysed by globalisation). Yet it is increasingly the case, as Waters explains (2001: 221), that the nation-state it is becoming an element in a hierarchy of political organization stretching from local, community and civic initiatives through to supranational ones. The declining hegemony of national identity reveals and is reinforced by the diversification of societys constituent communities. To the spatial communities long recognised as primary sites of belonging are now added abstract communities that form either on the basis of shared interests (social movements or virtual networks) or heritage (especially ethnicity or faith, but also sub-national or cultural). The plurality of modern societies is widely acknowledged as far exceeding that of previous eras, but it is not something with which governments and the public have yet come to terms. For democratic states based on liberal ideals of tolerance and individual

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autonomy, the ongoing pluralisation of society is a challenge to long-held working assumptions of an underlying identification with the nation and broadly-shared principles. Implications for the welfare state are a cause for concern in Britain especially (Goodhart, 2006, 2004), but most developed-world nations are concerned at how their institutions and culture will respond to the simultaneous pressures of domestic diversification and international immigration. The issues raised include: whether particularly strong forms of identity can be displayed in public (e.g. religious symbols or clothing); what role schools should play in maintaining or challenging inter-group relations; whether positive discrimination should be allowed and, if so, for which groups and what purposes (employment quotas for ethnic minorities; promotion of indigenous over other claims; all-women political shortlists). These can be understood as details within a wider debate: should government promote assimilation or multiculturalism, or opt for an alternative approach to managing diversity whilst maintaining unity? The recent literature shows increasing interest in alternatives to assimilation or multiculturalism. Both have been heavily critiqued: assimilation falling out of favour because it allowed insufficient space for difference; and multiculturalism more recently criticised for placing too much emphasis on difference. From the left and right of the academic field a new approach to multiculturalism is emerging that seeks to acknowledge diversity without allowing it to rupture the underlying unity on which society operates. Both emphasise the fact that communities and identities are not such discrete and homogenous entities as they have recently been viewed in public, political and academic discourse. This arises in recognising that their key characteristics (as outlined earlier in the paper) are fluid, plural and layered.

There are two issues. First, the recognition that identities are robustly plural and the importance of one identity need not obliterate another. And second, that a person has to make

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choices about what relative importance to attach, in a particular context, to their divergent loyalties and identities. The individual belongs to many different groups and its up to him or her to decide which of those groups he or she would like to give priority to. (Sen, quoted by Malik, 2006: 2)

This multiple-membership may cause problems of fragmentation within community, as noted above, but it is also a platform for daily association, even solidarity, between and beyond diverse communities. On the academic right, in the terms of the Communitarians, this is the diversity within unity approach (Etzioni, 2001). Those on the academic left discuss it in terms of a multiculturalism that draws on community beyond unity and difference (Delanty, 2004). Either way it emphasises day-to-day living as the basis for shared identification and common ground.

My argument is that the most important goal for multicultural societies today is the creation of at least a language, if not more, for articulating community and that this needs to be more than the recognition of difference. By community I mean simply the experience of belonging in everyday life. Community is not merely a symbolically constructed reality but is also a lived reality. Community derives its force from belonging and belonging does not necessarily require cultural cohesiveness or a collective identity (Delanty, 2004:53)

These notions of diversity within unity or community beyond difference and unity may or may not be the terms in which nations discuss their own issues. But what is clear from the literature is that the concepts and language with which diversity, belonging and the dynamics of association and dissociation are understood have themselves become far more diverse and nuanced than under older perceptions of community as stable and identity as simple. Acknowledging the full flux and complexity inherent in community and identity makes it difficult to get a handle on groups within society, but the literature suggests that this may actually be advantageous, replacing false ideas of

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homogeneity with attention to transversal solidarities (Bloul, 1999) and the diversity of identifications between people (Hall, 1996).

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IntroductionUnderstanding identity and communityKey characteristics of identityKey characteristics of communityThe underlying dynamics: belonging, solidarity and fragmentation

The shifting context of identity and communityDisruption and reconstitution: Current dynamics of belonging, solidarity and fragmentationAt the level of the individualAt the level of communityAt the level of the nation