Identity, consciousness, and reflexivity

Identity is a matter of consciousness, that is of becoming aware of an otherwise unconscious image of the self. This applies both to individual and to collective life. I am only a person to the extent that I know myself to be one, and in exactly the same way, a group – whether it be a tribe, race, or nation – can only be itself to the degree in which it understands, visualizes, and represents itself as such. In this chapter, I examine forms and categories of collective self-image and self-presentation in ethnic rather than individual terms and consider the role played by cultural memory in this process.

Personal and Collective Identity

There is a strange, seemingly paradoxical relationship between the two forms of identity. I would like to define this by way of two theses that seem to contradict each other:

1. A self grows from the outside in. It builds itself up individually by participating in the interactive and communicative patterns of the group to which it belongs and by contributing to that group's self-image. Therefore, the “we” identity of the group takes precedence over the “I” of the individual – in other words, identity is a social phenomenon, or what we might term “sociogenic.”

2. The collective “we” identity does not exist outside of the individuals who constitute and represent it. “We” is a matter of individual knowledge and awareness.