The Life Course and Social Change

Abstract

It was pointed out in the previous chapter that the exploration of national identity involves diverse understandings of national community and its construction of sameness and otherness. The main assumption was that a group’s identity is never homogenous and dependent on time, place and opportunity structures. Hence, when society is understood as a process constructed historically and that individuals are shaped by society, then this dialectical relationship appears as fundamentally crucial not only to the constitution of individuals and society, but also for biography and history. Considering the dimensions of time, process and context, social change can be viewed as resulting from different organizational structure, the diversity of societal development and the socio-historical embeddedness of individuals and their life courses. In this regard, the investigation of the process of national identity and the heterogeneity of the national group requires more than simply exploring cultural traits and political claims.