Abstract
Who can we be in the 21st century? The chapters in this book explore this question. Focusing on trends in Britain, the authors examine the current patterning of identities based on class and community, gender and generation, ‘race’, faith and ethnicity, and derived from popular culture. We look at how people locate themselves now, how they make sense of their biographies and trajectories, and tell their stories. The chapters examine the forms of ‘we’ and wider social categorisations available as resources for identity work, and the various kinds of trouble which seem to emerge, as people struggle to align themselves with, or resist, contemporary prescriptions.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Back, L. (1996) New Ethnicities and Urban Culture: Racisms and Multiculture in Young Lives. London: UCL Press.
Bauman, Z. (2001) The Individualized Society. Cambridge: Polity.
Bauman, Z. (2005) Liquid Life. Cambridge: Polity.
Beck, U. (1992) Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage.
Beck, U. and Beck-Gernsheim, E. (1995) The Normal Chaos of Love. Cambridge: Polity.
Beck, U. and Beck-Gernsheim, E. (2002) Individualization. London: Sage.
Beck, U., Giddens, A. and Lash, S. (1994) Reflexive Modernisation: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order. Cambridge: Polity.
Berlant, L. (2000) The Subject of True Feeling: Pain, Privacy, Politics. In S. Ahmed, J. Kilby, C. Lury, M. McNeil and B. Skeggs (eds.) Transformations: Thinking Through Feminism. London: Routledge.
Blackman, L., Cromby, J., Hook, D., Papadopoulos, D. and Walkerdine, V. (2008) Creating Subjectivities. Subjectivity: International Journal of Critical Psychology 22, 1–27.
Brannen, J. and Nielsen, A. (2005) Individualization, Choice and Structure: A Discussion of Current Trends in Sociological Analysis. Sociological Review 53 (3), 412–28.
Butler, J. (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge.
Butler, J. (2004) Undoing Gender. New York: Routledge.
Butler, J. (2006) Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. London: Verso.
Butler, T. with Robson G., (2003) London Calling: The Middle Classes and the Remaking of Inner London. Oxford: Berg.
Cronin, A.M. (2000) Consumerism and ‘Compulsory Individuality’: Women, Will and Potential. In S. Ahmed, J. Kilby, C. Lury, M. McNeil and B. Skeggs (eds.) Transformations: Thinking Through Feminism. London: Routledge.
Crow, G., Allan, G. and Summers, M. (2002) Neither Busybodies nor Nobodies: Managing Proximity and Distance in Neighbourly Relations. Sociology 36 (1), 127–45.
Forrest, R. and Kearns, A. (2001) Social Cohesion, Social Capital and the Neighbourhood. Urban Studies 38 (12), 2125–43.
Giddens, A. (1991) Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity.
Giddens, A. (1993) The Transformation of Intimacy. Cambridge: Polity.
Gilroy, P. (2005) Multiculture, Double Consciousness and the ‘War on Terror’. Patterns of Prejudice 39 (4), 431–43.
Gilroy, P. (2006) Postcolonial Melancholia. New York: Columbia University Press.
Goffman, E. (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Hall, S. (1992) New Ethnicities. In J. Donald and A. Rattansi (eds.) ‘Race’, Culture and Difference. London: Sage.
Hall, S. (2001) The Multicultural Question. Pavis Papers in Social Research, No. 4, Open University.
Heath, A. and Cheung, S.Y. (2006) Ethnic Penalties in the Labour Market: Employers and Discrimination. Department of Work and Pensions, Research Report No. 341.
Jamieson, L. (1998) Intimacy: Personal Relationships in Modern Societies. Cambridge: Polity.
Jamieson, L. (1999) Intimacy Transformed?: A Critical Look at the ‘Pure Relationship’. Sociology 33 (3), 477–94.
Leith, S. (2009) Comment Piece. The Guardian, 8th of January, p. 9.
Modood, T. (2007) Multiculturalism. Oxford: Polity.
Nayak, A. (2003) Race, Place and Globalisation: Youth Cultures in a Changing World. Oxford: Berg.
Parekh, B. (2000) The Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain. London: Runnymede Publications.
Rose, N. (1989) Governing the Soul: The Shaping of the Private Self. London: Routledge.
Rose, N. (1997) Assembling the Modern Self. In R. Porter (ed.) Rewriting the Self Histories from the Renaissance to the Present. London: Routledge.
Rose, N. (1999) Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Roseneil, S. and Budgeon, S. (2004) Beyond the Conventional Family: Intimacy, Care and Community in the 21st Century. Current Sociology 52 (2), 135–59.
Savage, M. (2000) Class Analysis and Social Transformation. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Savage, M. (2003) A New Class Paradigm? Review Article. British Journal of Sociology of Education 24 (4), 535–41.
Savage, M., Bagnall, G. and Longhurst, B. (2005) Globalization and Belonging. London: Sage.
Skeggs, B. (2004) Class, Self and Culture. London: Routledge.
Smart, C. (2007) Personal Life. Cambridge: Polity.
Strathern, M. (1992) After Nature: English Kinship in the Late 20th Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Walkerdine, V. and Bansel, P. (in press) Neoliberalism, Work and Subjectivity: Towards a More Complex Account. In M. Wetherell and C. Talpade Mohanty (eds.) The Sage Handbook of Identities. London: Sage.
Webb, J. (2004) Organisations, Self-Identities and the New Economy. Sociology 38 (4), 719–39.
Wetherell, M. (2008) Speaking to Power: Tony Blair, Complex Multicultures and Fragile White English Identities. Critical Social Policy 28 (3), 299–319.
Williams, F. (2004) Rethinking Families. London: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2009 Margaret Wetherell
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Wetherell, M. (2009). Introduction: Negotiating Liveable Lives — Identity in Contemporary Britain. In: Wetherell, M. (eds) Identity in the 21st Century. Identity Studies in the Social Sciences. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230245662_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230245662_1
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-36881-5
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-24566-2
eBook Packages: Palgrave Social & Cultural Studies CollectionSocial Sciences (R0)