Popular Culture, Geopolitics, and Identity by Jason Dittmer & Daniel Bos

Author:Jason Dittmer & Daniel Bos
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781538116739
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2019-02-14T00:00:00+00:00

Debates

This idea of narratives, as mentioned earlier, is somewhat anathema to a lot of traditional views of the social sciences. Narrative was originally associated solely with history, which was itself seen as fundamentally about describing the world rather than explaining it. The social sciences, in contrast, were defined by their quest to abstract and theorize the world, while historical narratives were perniciously particular and specific. By the 1960s and 1970s, even historians began to question the validity of narratives. Thus, the first debate about narratives revolved around their very legitimacy as an object of study. In the 1970s, however, both historians and other scholars interested in the study of people rediscovered narratives and radically refigured why they were important. Whereas originally narratives were descriptive (e.g., “this is what happened”), narratives were reconfigured as being constitutive: “all of us come to be who we are (however ephemeral, multiple, and changing) by being located or locating ourselves (usually unconsciously) in social narratives rarely of our own making ” (Somers 1994, 606, emphasis in original).

A second point of contestation about narrative revolves around what is called essentialism. Essentialism refers to the treatment of people as simply members of categories. This is exemplified in what has become known since the 1990s as identity politics. Identity politics is the implementation of political strategies meant to improve the condition of a social group that is considered oppressed. This highlighting of oppressed groups calls into question the universality of some public narratives. This is sometimes controversial, as dominant groups often view identity politics as an attack on their own privilege, affluence, and capacity to shape public narratives; for instance, white nationalists in the 2016 U.S. presidential election argued that white people, despite their vast economic and political power, were really victims of a system that privileged people of color. This, too, is a kind of identity politics. Dominant groups may also consider themselves oppressed as a result of identity politics—some groups are best served by the idea of the “universal” experience. Identity politics connects to public narratives because these groups often contest the history of the nation in which they coexist with other groups because they feel ignored or underrepresented. For instance, in the United States, Black History Month has elicited controversy by promoting African American history during the month of February. The month is intended to counteract the white-centric history that supporters claim is taught in schools. Some critics argue that it is wrong to single out one ethnic group in the United States for special treatment; others argue that it is tantamount to segregation—an excuse to keep history classes focused on white history for the other eleven months out of the year.

essentialism Treatment of an individual as primarily a member of a category

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