Identity Troubles ─ An Introduction

Identity Troubles: An Introduction provides a wide-ranging, accessible and critical introduction to theories of identity in the social sciences and humanities. The book explores transformations affecting our personal, professional, cultural, sexual and racial identities – and develops new ideas and concepts for grasping dilemmas of identity in our present age of uncertainty.

Following and extending the model of his highly popular Concepts of the Self, Anthony Elliott starts by distilling the core elements of social theories of identity, summarizing schools of thought from post-structuralism to post-feminism, and from psychoanalysis to postmodernism. The author then explores more recent contemporary Anglo-American traditions of thought about identity. Elliott investigates identity theories from Robert Bellah, Robert Putnam, Richard Sennett and Arlie Hochschild to Anthony Giddens, Ulrich Beck, Zymunt Bauman, Julia Kristeva, Slavoj Zizek and others. By reviewing the key themes and central dynamics of these writers work, Elliott advances beyond existing notions of "individualization", "reflexivity", "liquidization" and "new maladies of the soul" and instead – building upon his earlier books – offers fresh insights into what he terms "the struggle for reinvention" which increasingly defines strategies of identity across the global economy.

The book will be essential reading for undergraduate students in sociology, cultural studies, political science, women’s studies and identity studies in the humanities more generally. It offers the first reasonably comprehensive overview of identity studies in the interdisciplinary field of social theory – with chapters discussing the major works of key theorists, outlining the relevant social and historical context, and drawing out critical themes.

Anthony Elliott is Director of the Hawke Research Institute and Executive Director of the Hawke EU Centre for Mobilities, Migrations and Cultural Transformations, where he is Research Professor of Sociology at the University of South Australia.