CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2022
| Author | Aalou, Akim |
|---|---|
| Title | A Sociological Odyssey into the Intricate World of Identity |
| Summary | Identity is caught in a painful split between the popular and politicized substantialist understanding of identity and the empty, pure constructivist conception of identity prevalent in academia. Since identities are the empowering shackles of our times, I argue that scholars must reclaim identity theoretically, if they wish to rid it of its detriments for our lives. In an eclectic essay, I discuss a whole array of different thinkers and ideas to develop a conceptual framework which allows us to imagine the possibilities of identity. Crucial to imagine the richness of social life are Schinkel’s speculative imagination and Deleuze’s virtuality. By embedding this search for a re-imagination of identity into processual and relational sociologies, some fundamental sociological debates are encountered and dealt with. In this regard, I propose a theory of symbolic convergence in the attempt to reconcile the structural aspect of social life with a processual ontology. Finally, counter to consensus in social sciences which reduces identity to its actual-constructed dimension, I posit that we can rediscover our identities in difference or relation. Not(!) as expected, by connecting with those who are similar and distancing from those who are different, but in the counterintuitive phenomenological relation to the other. Simply put, we are the world we apprehend in the ways we relate to it. By discussing the often neglected or forgotten notion of sociality, this dissertation hopes to invigorate experiences of selfhood, otherness and a deep togetherness in ways that are beneficial to our lives. |
| Supervisor | Kovács, András |
| Department | Nationalism Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2022/aalou_akim.pdf |
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