Identities in Motion:
Identities in Motion:
From Precolonial to Posthuman
Sadeq Rahimi, 1999Transcultural PsychiatryMcGill University
INTRODUCTION
Threatened Identities
A FRAMEWORK OF CHANGE
The posthuman A hyperquest: academia A hyperquest: real life A hyperquest: the collective Disappearing space, shrinking time The smooth space New philosophies and the mimetic evolution Fragmentation and multiplicity A note on the politics of fragmentation
SEMIOTIC SELVE AND COLLECTIVE IDENTITIESA sense of coherence The psychological self Loosening the Empire: Other Conceptions of the Self A collective illusion
CONCLUSION
The advantages of a semiotic model A concept-to-work-with A final note on politics
BIBLIOGRAPHYCommentsINTRODUCTION
Identity is the question of our era. Contemporary developments have added much tension, weight, and intricacy to the terms self and identity. Traditionally the philosophers game alone, self and identity are now open ga mes to the psychologist, the anthropologist, the sociologist, the mathematician, the physicist, the computer scientist, the geographer, and many more. Human and social sciences are especially overflowing with passionate discussions of who, what, and how t he subject is (see for example Ashmore & Jussim, 1997; Banaji & Prentice, 1994; Markus & Herzog, 1991; Markus & Wurf, 1987; Marsella, DeVos, & Hsu, 1985; Porter & Washington, 1993; Whittaker, 1993 for literature reviews in different areas).
Threatened Identities
One possible explanation for these developments is the now old threatened identity hypothesis. Whether played in the colonial context as the threat from the Other, or in the postmodern field as the threat of falling apart; and whether felt at the individual level as the pathology of multiplicity, or at the collective level as the loss of cultural and social values, threatened identity has been a common human concern for the last few centuries. "Wh y, indeed, should we have so many identity problems in modern life? It cannot be for lack of rationality for we have more rational information and techniques than ever," writes Klapp (1969). Certainly not for lack of rationality, I would insist. Lerner (1 959) had earlier addressed this question, with reference to rituals and traditions. As the process of modernization progressed and the new environment asked for new behavior, Lerner (1959) explained, a displacement of old traditions had to take place, whi ch in turn called in for changes in our sense of identity. This, of course, was before the age of mobility, when globalization was not yet the buzzword; and exclusively western, where there was no threat of a robust Other deliberately seeking to displace your identity. Though much has changed since the times of Lerner (1959) or Klapp (1969), the spirit of their concerns seems to apply to recent developments in similar ways. If the postmodern condition is a continuation, or an ;aftermath of modernization (see Harvey, 1989; or Jameson, 1984, for example), one which would not have come to be without the modern predicate, then change and speed might give useful clues to the qualitative differences between the eras. And if we accept Giddens (1991) description of modernity as a "post-traditional order," (p. 2), then post-modernism may be described as simply furthering the irreverence of modernity for tradition, to target "order" itself. Human mind, in this account, is un dergoing continuous and fundamental change in response to the shift in environmental demands, from premodern to modern to postmodern. "Never before," writes Melucci (1996), "in the history of the great transformations have the changes under wa y been met with such a bewildering confusion" (p. 99). More specifically, connectedness and identification are the two senses where such shifts are experienced most dramatically by both individuals and collectives as instability and lack of coherence at p sychological (the epidemy of modernism) and metaphysical (marking the postmodern condition) levels. Warning against the postmodern notions of self and identity, Glasss (1993) lament testifies to just that sense of threat: "the danger to identity her e seems obvious: a boundaryless self is a self without identity . . ." (p. 148).
A FRAMEWORK OF CHANGE
The following paper is a theoretical discussion of recent transformations of the human condition, with an accent on developments that constitute the postmodern condition. While it is difficult to elucidate wh at exactly the phrase recent transformations means, locating it against a general framework might help. An important determinant in constructing such a framework is the coincidence of technological and political (colonial, to be exact) develop ments. It is an important coincidence, because while each of the two can be laid singularly to map recent transformations, neither can fully express the multiple dimensions of these changes, nor would these changes have taken place in the same way in the absence of either factor. Briefly, I tend to break down the history of these changes on the precolonial/premodern; colonial/modern; and postcolonial/postmodern scale of reference, mainly to acknowledge the multiple facets of change, as well as the differe nt perspectives (specifically, ethically and politically) within which these changes could be evaluated. While it is true that the "projects" of postmodernism and postcolonialism are very similar in their battle against the "logocentric master narratives of European culture," or the "centre/margin binarism of imperial discourse" (Ashcroft et. al., 1995, p. 117), it is also true, however, that the post in postmodern is not quite the same as the post in postcolonial (see Appia h, 1992 for further discussion). Apart from (and perhaps because of) diverging political and philosophical concerns, the colonial/postcolonial discourse provides a rich context for political and ethical investigation, while a more technologically-informed approach to modernization/postmodernization might offer a better working ground for observing the role of technology in these developments. The discussions that follow are more accentuated on the postmodern aspect of this scale than the postcolonial, for at least three main reasons. First, that postmodernity, a western phenomenon by definition, is rapidly contaminating the globe, specifically on the wings of new digital information and communication technologies. Globalization, in other words, seems to b e in effect a global spread of the capitalist reality, which has dominated the west for centuries, in its postmodern guise. Secondly, contemporary technological developments, also west-born phenomena, cannot be seen as separate from the colonial enterpris e. Both modernization and colonialism carry and spread a reality which is western by conception, and which has become possible through the overwhelmingly rapid and efficient scientific/technological developments in the west. And finally, the simple fact i s that my arguments here are also articulated and embedded within the western discourse on humanity and sciences, a condition which automatically coerces me to play within (an always limited range of) available western language games. That is to say, I find it more practical to accept the force of the current discourse and play the privileged language game, than to try to create a separate reality and establish communication ports from within that environment.
The way recent human transformations have been understood by human sciences and the way they have affected global and local realities are thus the focus of the first part of this paper. I will present the question of identity within the framework o f change, arguing that such change, and specifically, the speed of change, have problematized identity and continue to do so. I will discuss identity as a concern for not only the individual, but also the collective. Emphasizing the necessity of a theory of identity in motion, I will consider the psychological and the anthropological perspectives on identity concerning individual and collective levels. I will then go on to argue for practical, as well as theoretical imp ortance of conceptualizing collective identity as a concept-to-work-with for understanding local and global social phenomena. Simply put, the purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how and why it is important to develop a theory o f identity that can accommodate both the individual and the collective within a context of continuously shifting paradigms. I will suggest the need for an understanding of identity (individual and collective) as a semiotic construct independent of spatial , or temporal grids of reference in its inception (i.e., capable of existence in the absence of these parameters). As discussed below, independence of time and space would be a necessity for any identity discourse that is committed to acceptin g fluidity and change as a premise, since dependence on either factor would imply continuity (and thus constancy) through time or space, a continuity that may best be described as a semiotic illusion (see below). As the roles of space and time as constituents of human reality become less inflexible, it becomes imperative for any new theory of identity to accommodate a conception of identity ultimately unconstrained by these grids. It is possible, I will suggest, only by removing th e notion of identity from phenomenological domain to the semiotic field, to dismiss direct involvement of either time or space in its construction.
Finally, despite the specific philosophical perspective endorsed through the language of this paper (i.e., western postmodern), and while accepting Baumans (1995) suggestion, that "identity is a name given to the sought escape from uncertaint y" (p. 82), I would insist nonetheless that political and clinical concerns demand certain concepts-to-work-with, certain constructions meant to translate Being into the human reality. True, such translation spells violence, but th e fact is that in a final analysis violence appears as the other name for being, and any semiotic construction of the world always already exists through a systemized (if partial) negation of Being. That is to say, a philosophical appreciation of the void behind the term identity does not necessarily render a conceptualization of identity futile, or useless. The challenge, however, may lie in gradually freeing the concept, so as to move as far as possible from positivistic reification towards the least rigid conceptualizations permitted within the current discourse of a given era. Currently, for example, the notions of change and fluidity championed by postmodern thinkers may provide useful metaphors towards such liberation of the working conc ept. That is why environmental change is the main theme of this paper, and that is why I suggested earlier a theory of identity in motion.
The posthuman
The environmental changes the current paper is concerned with may be recognized in the structural and semiotic transition from the modern to the postmodern. In other words, the current hyperquest for identity can be considered a conversion effect of a postmodern condition replacing the modern. The frenzy with which human consciousness is struggling to locate itself and its world well signifies the disorienting effects of shattered grand narratives and the deconstruction anxiety that results from a continuous calling into question of reality and truth, the Reality and Truth which have served as the center of poise for our conception of Being throughout the history of consciousness. This is a state of liminality well beyond what human consciousness has experienced or is prepared for; a passage to a universe so different one may call it posthuman. No rites de passage have been prescribed for this transition, so anxiety, fear and mourning seem to be the only tools our species has for rendering the passage meaningful. For the human (or more precisely, the posthuman) subject to be at ease within a world that is not bound together with static concentric patterns, and to find exhilaration in fragmentedness and comfort in multiplicity and super-rapid change, a serious reorientation, a re-defining of the system of signification has to take place, and anxiety is bound to be a side-effect of such transformation. Anxiety may thus be recogniz ed as the drive behind contemporary passion for identification, if we understand this enterprise in terms of an attempt at reorientation. If it is true as Douglas (1966) asserts, that what cannot be classified is dangerous and polluting, what would be the logical consequence of the prospect of everything slipping into that space between the boundaries where current human structures simply do not cohere? Let me repeat Glasss (1993) classic statement of horror: "the danger to identity here seems obvious: a boundaryless self is a self without identity..." (p. 148).
A hyperquest: academia
lund (1997) claims that during the past two decades "the quest for identity ... has become one of the most central characteristics of our civilizations transformation" (p. 102). According to Ashmore and Juss im (1995), self-concept and self-perception have expanded to have the largest number of abstracts in psychological literature over the last two decades (p. 5). Though North American psychological literature reflects a long tradition of neglecting the _ 5;collective to favor the individual, the collective has always been present in the margins of this tradition. Psychological theories of Baldwin (e.g., 1897), James (e.g., 1890), or Jung (e.g., 1945), as well as more sociologically infor med thinkers like Cooley (e.g., 1902), or Mead (e.g., 1934), though far from being the mainstream material, have nonetheless survived on the margins. More importantly, the recent resurgence of interest in self and identity is certainly accompanied by an i ncreased consideration of the collective even within the North American psychological mainstream (see Banaji & Prentice, 1994, and Markus & Wurf, 1987 for example reviews). For the anthropologist, of course, the collective has always played an imp ortant role in understanding the individual (see, for example, Klukhohn & Mowrer, 1944; Honigmann 1967), even for those who did not take clear sides in the culturalist/universalist game (e.g., Hallowell, 1955 or Obeyesekere, 1981).
A hyperquest: real life
One might argue that if the dynamics I have suggested were in place, then consequences should be traceable not simply in research literature, but in the actual lives of those touched by the postmodern condition. First, i t should be noted that scholarly activities are as much bound and directed by the law of current discourse as are the individual and the collective. That is to say, it is not logically unsafe to assume that trends in scholar activities reflect current sta tes of meaning and the interests of the specific discourse these activities perpetuate, and such discourse would simultaneously encompass the scholar community and the rest of the society where that community thrives. Secondly, real life, _ 5;empirical consequences of these dynamics are easy to find.
One traditional explanation for the fact that fashion statements and eccentric lifestyles are increasingly frequently displayed in more (post)modernized societies [whether you choose a geographical, technological, or temporal perspective] comes fro m this hypothesis. "Fad and fashion," writes Klapp (1969), "symptomize a restlessness about identity which is becoming characteristic of much of the modern world" (p. 73). If the more traditionally safe society of the 60s experienced "restlessness about i dentity," it only makes sense that with the advent of the postmodern era the already endangered sense of identity would become only more threatened, and beyond and above individual identity confusion and alienation, societies become involved i n "mass groping for activities and symbols with which to restore or find new identity" (Klapp, 1969, p. vii), a collective meta experience of identification loss. According to lund (1997), "insecurities and crises in the west generally are created by the fragmentation of close social ties, the erosion of meta-social guarantees, and the dissolution of more or less homogeneous identities and ideologies of classes and nations," and in explaining such insecurities, she points ou t a "profound feeling of social and cultural erosion" (p. 102). Turkles and Haraways famous digital selves (see, for example, Turkle, 1984, 1995, and Haraway, 1985, 1997; or even Gergen, 1991) may provide further support for the perspective th at prophesizes the end for human identity. The quality of changes assessed by these (and many other) thinkers, and the practical implications of such changes may not be as easily observable (nor understandable) in daily life as they are in the realm of di gital mimesis, but as more humans adopt dual citizenships of the real and the simulated worlds the experience becomes more translatable from one realm to another. Experiences whose pronunciation alone would have spelled psychosis a generation or two ago are now common place channels of communication, especially within virtual communities. The very notion of identity, stability over time, is directly challenged and destroyed by experiences which are becoming part of the norm before most of us have a chance to create cognitive maps to trap and solidify them: identities without precedence.
A hyperquest: the collective
If it is true that contemporary developments have led to an identification anxiety and a quest beyond the individual, at a collective level, then one would tend to interpret in identification terms collective actions ran ging from cult behavior to inter-ethnic tensions, war and genocide, to revolutions and fundamentalist movements. Supporting this perspective, Melucci (1996) writes: "ethnic, cultural and nationalist impulses are not solely, nor necessarily, triggered by d iscrimination or exploitation." Such impulses he says, are formed because "individuals and groups find themselves acting in situations of uncertainty bereft of stable reference criteria" (p. 159). It is perhaps an unnecessary distinction on th e part of Melucci (1996), to divorce discrimination and exploitation from that which causes uncertainty and bereavement of referential stability. One could argue, for example, that it is exactly such quality of exploitation and discriminations that establ ishes western colonialism as a cause of uncertainty and destruction of the sense of identity and stability in its prey cultures. It is not easy to imagine a peaceful dialogue between two realities causing the extremely destructive effects west ern colonialism has had on its victims. Bereft of the security of locatedness, the individual (and the collective) would be prepared to enter lengths of aggression and violence to preserve or re-establish that "identity-securing interpretive s ystem," (Habermas, 1976). Current collective efforts around the globe for such re-establishments tend to display two distinct qualities, which well reflect the double effects of postmodern/postcolonial predicaments: first, construction of the collective a t the cost of the local, as a reply to the postmodern call (e.g. Lyotard, 1991, pp. 61-5). "On the one hand", writes lund (1997), "we see the emergence of increasing societal reflexivity in the identity-forming processes on both individual and coll ective levels" (p. 103). The second effect, however, is what one might construe as a postcolonial phenomenon, a renewed effort to resume historical or mythological veins of collective reference which have often been effaced or displaced through the proces ses of colonialism and modern boundary buildings. "On the other [hand]," continued lund (1997), "we see new enclosures following ethnic lines" (p. 103). This double-sidedness seems to be an authentically postmodern phenomenon, one readi ly demonstrable in recent events of the Middle East or Eastern Europe, where new collectivities are emerging (or struggling to do so) from the fragmented heaps of former collectivities like the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia etc., or from yet-not-deconstructed states (e.g., Iran, Iraq, or Turkey). Melucci describes ethnic identity as "a container which offers individuals and groups a high degree of certainty in an uncertain world" (p. 159). Erikson (1959) explains prejudice as a response to the anxiety of losin g the collective sense of identification: "the expression of the individuals deep fear of being alone" (p. 17). Ignatieff (1994) predicts collective anxiety in response to a similar threat: "there is one type of fear more devastating in its impact t han any other: the systemic fear which arises when a state begins to collapse" (p. 16). The spot where the postmodern and the postcolonial predicaments join (or cross?) one another, can be defined precisely by such "loss of the collective sense of identif ication," and the acute sense of uncertainty and confusion which accompanies such loss.
"Postmodern culture," writes Lyotard (1991, p. 64), "is in fact on the way to spreading to all humanity". As the postmodern deconstruction of systems of identification remove the boundaries (either spatial or temporal) with which humans have learne d to map and contain their collective reality, two immediate consequences would be imaginable: an increased waning of the individual and the locally constructed collectivities, and simultaneously, an increase in significance of a larger collec tive. Both the collapsing boundaries and threatened identities, and the emergent globalization may thus go far in explaining many recent international/intergroup events. The postmodern culture is spreading to include the human community, thus introducing a new collective, "but to the same extent it is tending to abolish local and singular experience, . . . the new culture can produce such divergent effects, of generalization and destruction" (Lyotard, 1991, p. 64).
As local collectivities are impelled by the contraction of space and time to merge, the collective grows to assume inordinate significance where the question of human life, mental or physical, is involved (for more detailed discussions of these dou ble sided developments see e.g., Anderson, 1991; or Melucci, 1996). The individual (either whole, bounded, impermeable or emergent, unbounded, fluid) would gradually fade as the source of agency and intentionality, to be understood simply as t he locus of collective agency.
If it is true then, that the collective is becoming an increasingly significant point of reference in social and human sciences, then a conception of the collective and collective identity warrants attention and continual refinement, specifically o ne which appears to promise a useful concept-to-work-with, towards explaining patterns of social and political movements in the increasingly postmodern world. It is specifically towards such concept-to-think-with that I have tried to limit my discussions to the borders of social and political applicability. I would like to point out the importance of the term concept-to-think-with at this point. A concept-to-think-with is not a claim to truth, nor is it a reference to a complete system of sign ification, it is simply a way of trying to provide a communication field that does not impose the obligations of a full-fledge reificatory regime.
Disappearing space, shrinking time
As Klapp (1969) elaborates, modernization led to strong loss of identity by depriving geography of identity, and replacing place by space. "Space," writes Klapp (1969), "robs identity. Place, on t he other hand, nurtures it, tells you who you are" (p. 28). If the replacement of place by space is an achievement of modernity, the replacement of space by time can be considered a postmodern hallmark. "It is increasingly true," writes Schwartz (1995), " that cultures are [now] bounded more in time than in space" (p. 70). It is, in other words, time that reflects change, much more than does space. In fact, space itself (in the scientific sense of the word) is now defined by time in scientific discourse. T he unit of length (meter) for example, is reduced directly to the unit of time. Again, if the modern question of identity concerned locality and spatial reference, what concerns the question of identity in the postmodern condition is primarily defined by temporal locatedness. For example, the notion of speed inevitably informs the issue of identification reference in a postmodern context. The speed of environmental change is gradually approaching a point where identity would lack a reference, a precedence with which to identify oneself. The conflict is fundamental: if self-identification has traditionally always already implied a reference in time, then acceleration is inherently the enemy of identity, by continuously curtailing the stuff iden tity is made of.
As time, the final shelter for identity after the decline of space, is increasingly shrunken by technology magic, identity continuously approaches zero. What comes to mind in imagining the process of contraction is the Doppler effect. The better kn own part of Dopplers effect is the change in the frequency of sound (or light) as the source (of sound or light) approaches the perceptive agent. That is how physics explains the perceived change in the pitch of a sound produced by a racecar as it a pproaches and subsequently distances from a by-stander. The less well-known part of Dopplers effect, however, is perhaps even more relevant to my discussion of postmodern identity. If the source of sound moves towards the perceptor at rates higher t han the speed of sound, the order of reference disintegrates. At exactly twice the speed of sound, for example, you will hear the produced sound in a reversed order. What I would like to draw from this analogy is the unknown effects on the notion of ident ity, as speed increases. In the same way that the change in temporal perspective with regard to the incidence of sound elements can lead to differential perception of those elements, changing temporal perspectives with regard to the incidence of identity elements may imply drastic changes in ones understanding of ones continuity memory, and thus the (semiotically conceived) construct reality of his/her universe. Fraser (1994) recognizes similar effects of the rapidly changing environment, prop osing that as the flow of time alters, "the environment created by individuals and societies outruns the adaptive capacities of their creators and leads to a loss of temporal horizons" (p. 5).
The smooth space
If we describe our current postmodern condition as a condition where the critical referential distance of identity approaches zero (the contraction of time), then the increase in speed of change can, theoreti cally at least, lead to a reversal of the orders of reference (see above). This may in fact be conceptualized as a reversal in the order of signification, so that the signifier precedes the signified. Though extremely important for a theory of posthuman i dentity, the possibility and implications of such reversal are not within the scope of the present paper. Presently applicable, however, is the more-or-less current postmodern predicament, within which self-identification seems to be running short of refe rence. To imagine a system of meaning wherein the act of self-identification (as traditionally done by humans) is unfeasible is to imagine a constant state of flux, a seamless ocean of meaning, a state traditionally considered pathological and diagnosed s chizoid: a "smooth space," which is "in principle infinite, open, and unlimited in every direction;" and which "has neither top nor bottom nor center" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1977, p. 476). It is not difficult to realize that the self native to this environment cannot be the human self we are familiar with. In the words of Gergen (1991), the postmodern self resides in "a continuous state of construction and reconstruction," a fluid landscape where "each reality of self gives way to reflexive questioning, irony, and ultimately the playful probing of yet another reality," a reality where "the center fails to hold" (p. 6). While such conception of a posthuman to come may appear fantastic, the undeniable fact is that the postmodern condition is c onstantly expanding its reach, dissolving boundaries and transforming nations.
New philosophies and the mimetic evolution
The new conceptualizations of self and identity as multiple and fragmented may not be regarded as historical discoveries, in the sense that they (may or) may not be referred to the past eras of the human mind. The contem porary fascination with and proliferation of the postmodern theories of self and identity may be understood as the human reaction to technology: "I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives. This incredulity is undoubtedly a product of progress in the sciences" (Lyotard, 1984, p. xxiv). Postmodern philosophies of difference, or more generally, the new philosophies (new, as in dating after Nietzsches spreading the news of Gods death) may be seen as ef forts to maintain meaningful the changes the unfoldings of consciousness have brought the human reality. These changes have transformed the human condition, the semiotic environment of the human mind, to the extent that it would appear impossible for the human species (as signified by the human mind) to survive without undergoing fundamental adaptation.
Despite the apparent naivet of attempting to approach such (mimetic, rather than biological) transformations of the human condition via the conventional evolutionary discourse, an evolutionary language does offer useful metaphors of change. Even if the human physiology could properly respond to the increasingly novel demands of technology with more or less unchanged appearance, it is almost impossible to imagine human mind surviving the demands of the new environment without _ 45;falling apart. Exploring relevant areas, Donald (1993) for example, suggests the concepts of cultural and cognitive evolution. He divides this evolution in three major transitions: from culture of apes to the culture of ho mo erectus, from the culture of homo erectus to that of homo sapiens, and finally the recent and largely nonbiological stage, the emergence of visual symbolism and external memory. Each of these stages, according to Don alds (1993) model, involves structural change in cognitive organization, and profound cultural changes, in addition to (and in correspondence with) biological "hardware" changes. What sets the latest stage of this evolution apart from the rest, howe ver, is that cognitive and cultural changes in this phase rely on hardware changes that are "external to the biological memory system and reside in the technology of culture" (p. 18). The technology of culture or external mem ory for Donald (1993) is defined as a "storage and retrieval system that allows humans to accumulate experience and knowledge," (p. 309) a concept that would lead ones mind to the field of computer science even without Donalds own explic it reference to computer networks in elaborating external memory. Two aspects of Donalds (1993) work are most relevant to my current arguments, the notion of cognitive evolution, and that of external memory. Though beyond the present paper, the theo retical possibility of investigating technological effects in an evolutionary framework introduces important implications for a theory of posthuman identity. More readily applicable, however, is the notion of external memory. Establishing a relationship b etween external memory and the sense of identity would readily suggest a displacement of the locus of identity, or at least an expansion of the locus of identity, from the bounded unit traditionally understood as the individual to the wider domain of _ 5;culture, the collective. "The memory system," writes Donald (1993), "once collectivized into the external symbolic storage system, becomes virtually unlimited in capacity and much more robust and precise." (p. 311). Such dynamic can be discussed i n two terms: the presence of the collective in what constitutes the individual, and the expansion of the individual through the collective. The notion of a collective that informs the individuals sense of identity is in fact what will be discussed b elow as collective identity. The notion of expansion, the individual with a sense of memory and identity spread beyond and outside his or her traditional self, is closely relevant to the postmodern notion of fragmentation discussed below. While I used earlier the metaphor of falling apart to suggest a dysfunctional reaction to environmental demands, I would like to propose that the phenomenon most frequently described as the fragmentation of human identity w ithout any implications of a disorder, may be understood as an adaptive response to those demands.
Jean Baudrillard (1987) reports contemporary human condition in this way: "[we are] in that state of hyperreality . . . we are dealing with a sign that posits the principle of non-reality, the principle of the absolute absence of realit y. We went beyond the reality principle a long time ago, and now the game which is being played is no longer being played in the world of pure illusion..." (pp. 46-47). Note that Baudrillards hyperreality is not a simulated reality, it i s a state of reality, one which Levin (1996) calls "reality conceived without otherness" (p. 274). It is more in line with Heideggers Ge-Stell, which describes an enframing of the human experience of Being by the creation of its o wn mind, i.e., technology. Baudrillards conception of the simulacra --the third order, to be more specific: see Baudrillard (1993) for details-- as the narrative of human identity in the postmodern condition, would be a useful framework for conceptu alizing the transformation of human identity as a result of technological change. Far from revolutionary, as notes Pefanis (1991), the simulacra (and hence the theoretical possibility of transitional developments of meaning), could be defended with perspe ctives as old as Platos notion of society as mimesis (see pp. 59f.). Once we recognize social human as a simulation, an abstraction shared by (and, simultaneously, constitutive of) the individual members of a given society, then the transition from one level of simulation to the next would be more readily conceivable. Baudrillard (1983) speaks of the latest order(s) of simulation as maps without a territory. "Simulation is no longer that of a territory," he writes, "it is the map that precedes the t erritory...that engenders the territory" (p. 2). Philosophically, I would problematize the idea of "no longer". To use that means to imply that at some point these maps, the simulations within which humans semiotic existence has been established, ac tually referred to a territory, a substance, a referential being. It is the assumption of this paper that such substance has never been in place, and thus has never disappeared or replaced, despite the fact that certain perspectives have assumed (and thus observed) such qualities. To use other words from Baudrillard himself, it is in fact more true to understand all systems of representation as "the situation created by any system of signs when it becomes sophisticated enough, autonomous enough, to abolish its own referent and to replace it with itself" (1991, p. 157. Note also that the notion of a map that precedes its territory has implications for my earlier discussion of the theoretical possibility of a reversal in the orders of signification and identification).
Fragmentation and multiplicity
"Once considered the rarest of clinical oddities," writes McAdams (1997), "multiple personality disorder has re-emerged as an astonishing cultural phenomenon in North America during the past 25 years" (p. 50). It takes l ittle effort to find much literature on the recent mushrooming of these phenomena [see for example, Cardena (1994); Hacking (1995); Kihlstrom (1995); Klein and Doane (1994) and Spanos (1994)]. True, so-called personality disorders generally associated wit h qualities of multiplicity and fragmentation may have become more common in North America, and this development may indeed correlate positively with technological advancements and the unfoldings of the postmodern condition. Something, however, sets Deleu ze & Guattaris postmodern praise of fragmentation distinctly apart from Yeats modern dread of falling apart. If a center which does not hold signals the end of the world to Yeats but the beginning of a new philosophy to Derrida, this is no t necessarily because they are talking about different centers: it may simply be that they are both right. Would it be too far-fetched to assume that Yeats falcon was simply hyper-sensitive to seismic waves of the "rocking cradle"? My answer is no.
The schizoid self native to Deleuze and Guattaris "soft space" is not a pathological human, it is the posthuman subject. It is not pathological, not because its fragmentation is qualitatively different from a traditional schizophrenic, but be cause it is lived in the context of a different environment, a different reality. It is this difference which is often erroneously interpreted to represent a disjointment of scholar and intellectual from political and clinical in postmodern th ought. Glass (1993), for example, criticizes the postmodern perspective as a "dangerous advocacy," discussing passionately what he perceives to distinguish postmodern ideas from those of the object-relations school, and Melanie Klein and Winnicotts traditions. Seconded by many, Glass (1993) describes what he considers the postmodern idealization of multiplicity and fragmentation, as "a radical insensitivity to . . . the feelings of abandonment, terror, and implosion" experienced by individuals expos ed to such processes (p. 14). "There is something terribly wrong in the postmodernist interpretation of what multiplicity or fragmentation of self means," he writes (p. 8). Criticizing Deleuze and Guattaris calling schizophrenic process a "potential for revolution" (see Deleuze & Guattari, 1977, e.g. p. 341), Glass (1993) contends: "what kind of revolution? How can persons who hallucinate, who live in fear, who refuse to speak, who are desperately afraid of other persons, who lack a sense of a h istorical self, be in any way considered "revolutionary" . . . Deleuze and Guattari distort a process that in its reality portrays loss, despair, impotence, and futility" (p. 148). While not necessarily lacking in logic, Glasss contention seems to l ack somewhat in imagination. The question is perhaps not as much how Deleuze and Guattari could ignore the "loss, despair, impotence, and futility" which accompanies schizoid deconstruction today, as is the changes born of shifting realities, or what such deconstruction might mean in a different reality. Jameson (1984) captures the spirit of this difference, where he predicts that "schizophrenic disjunction or criture, when it becomes generalized as a cultural style, ceases to entertain a n ecessary relationship to the morbid content we associate with terms like schizophrenia, and becomes available for more joyous intensities" (p. 74). While joyous intensity may carry (unnecessarily) a sense of naive excitement, the idea that in a postmodern condition such schizophrenic disjunction can assume new meanings is certainly not naive.
A note on the politics of fragmentation
"For political outcast," writes Glass (1993), "terror comes from external agents; for the psychically disconnected, terror radically disrupts internal forms of identification and knowledge" (p. 148). Visible in this comm ent is the distinction between the internal forms of identification and knowledge and external agents, a dualism that succeeds to find the individual capable of living dual realities of inside and outside, by failing to understand the subject as a part and product of its context. In fact only such a distinction would allow imagining a subject made of material qualitatively different from its context. What led Yeats to believe the End was close was the vision of a modern subject, a falcon assessing its reality by reference to the center, cast against a postmodern stage where the center did not hold. It might, however, be as rare an incident in real life to see a dinosaur roaming contemporary Albertan plains as it is to f ind a modern subject treading postmodern plateaus. What even Glass (1993) cannot (and does not) deny is the social realization of the postmodern condition. What he may be failing to take into account, however, is that an adaptive strategy in o ne environment can simply be a dysfunctional flaw in another (and vice versa). In other words, if a unified sense of self, a center, serves human survival in the modern reality, this is not sufficient reason that the same would apply in the postmodern.
Despite the theoretical plausibility of a postmodern subjectivity and even the far-fetched notion of a posthuman subject who thrives not on coherence and unity but fragmentation and multiplicity, in at least one respect I tend to agree with Glass a nd others discontent with the movement called postmodernism, and that is the actual distance between the postmodern/posthuman and the human subject as it exists today. I would like to call to attention two aspects to this issue. First, that th e posthuman is more a prediction, yet to come, than an observation, a case at hand; and secondly that the discourse called postmodernism makes sense more as a descriptive language game than a prescriptive regime. It is an important fact that d espite the significant presence of postmodern elements such as technological objects-to-think-with [as Turkle (1984, 1995) calls them] and globalized culture and economies, the postmodern reality is not yet the established dominant reality aro und the globe. While our era may be understood as the link that connects the human to the posthuman, where the human sense of reality is fundamentally disturbed, the ultimate moment of transformation is yet to come. It is not difficult to unde rstand Glass (1993), when he complains "the most powerful evidence against the postmodernist concept of self comes not from theory but from the words and lives of individuals actually experiencing the terrible psychological dislocation of multiplici ty" (p. xii). While it is possible to argue that what we understand as a healthy sense of coherence and identity at either individual or collective levels is a mere illusion (see below), it is also true that our current collective unders tanding of individual, mental health, or reality does not generally regard these as illusory constructs, certainly not the western tradition. Similarly important is the question of the postmodern as a condition and postmodernity as a state of affairs vis--vis postmodernism as a prescriptive discourse, an ideology. Unlike Glass and many others (some of whom would gladly accept the title postmodernist) who see m to understand postmodernism in the latter terms, I tend to view postmodernity in Lyotards (1984) terms, as "incredulity toward metanarratives" (p. xxiv), which Jameson (1984-b) finds in accord with Deleuze and Guattaris (1977) 145;warning that "the schizophrenic ethic they proposed was not at all a revolutionary one, but a way of surviving under capitalism" (Jameson, 1984-b, p. xviii). In other words, it may be an uncalled-for error to interpret and thus reject postmodern literature (or at least all postmodern literature) as prescriptions for dysfunctional pathologies based on "distortions" of "the face of madness" (Glass, 1993, p. 148). "If postmodernism is a historical phenomenon," writes Jameson elsewhere (1984, p. 85), "then the attempt to conceptualize it in terms of moral or moralizing judgements must finally be identified as a category-mistake."
Semiotic Selves and Collective Identities
I have thus far suggested that self and identity have become common themes of investigation because human reality has encountered a demand for change in adjusting to new technologies, which in turn demands a change in hu man identificatory system. I have also suggested that postmodern notions of multiplicity and fragmentation provide useful metaphors in postulating what an adaptive response to these demands may be. Earlier I also suggested, as part of such adaptive respon se, an increasing importance for the collective as a replacement for the local and the individual, and the need for the construct collective identity as a concept-to-work-with for better understanding collective phenomena. In order to bring these theoreti cal discussions down to the practical context of my current project, I will discuss below an understanding of collective identity and collective self-esteem, against the general theme of identity. To facilitate my discussions, I develop my arguments using the anthropology vs. psychology frame of reference.
I propose collective identity as a semiotically conceived sense of coherence that is experienced by the individual with reference to a specific collectivity that individual considers him/herself to be a part of (see below for further discussion). F urther, and based on this understanding of collective identity, I use also the concept of collective self-esteem, as a way of referring to the overall positivity of an individuals perception of that collectivity. Clearly these constructs can be prob lematized at both theoretical and practical levels.
A sense of coherence
I have chosen to understand identity (personal or collective), as a semiotically conceived sense of coherence. There are a few arguments for this choice, one of which I discussed earlier as the need to locate human (sense of ) identity outside the rigidities of time or space. Somewhat traditionally, American theorists of self and identity have generally relied heavily on temporality as the anchorage of their theories, even where their conceptualizations have been proposed as semiotic arguments (see, for example, the theories of Mead, Peirce, James, or Dewey, all of whom claim more or less semiotic bases for their understanding of the self). In a recent reconciliatory attempt at combining the different American the ories of self and identity (specifically, those of Mead and Peirce) together as complements, Wiley (1994) suggests a "triadic" theory of identity. Wileys (1994) triad locates human identity in a triangular relation between temporal, semiotic, and di alogical elements. He suggests a merger of theories locating identity in each of these domains, arguing (naively, I should add) that "this theoretical whole [is] greater than the sum of its parts" (p. 216). Rejecting the semiotic theory of Eco (e.g., Eco, 1976), he writes, "for Eco the self is a sign in the same way that ordinary words are signs. But obviously we are not . . . otherwise these words or others like them, would also be humans" (p. 217). Apart from the generally simplistic treatment of the (S aussurian) semiotic approaches employed or implied in European thought (e.g., Wittgenstein and Lacan, or more generally, in structuralist, post-structuralist, and postmodernist literature) American critics too often ignore in their discussions the impasse positivism faces in accounting for the changing face of reality.
One problem with efforts to establish identity in temporal dimensions, for example, is that once we can conceive of temporality as itself an object of subjective construction, then the sense of coherence which is the marker of identity may not be based in it. In other words, for the subject to be able to achieve and maintain a sense of coherence while accommodating a shifting element, it is a logical requirement of that sense of coherence to accommodate the element, rather than being accommodated by that element. The problem with time as a scale against which identity has been generally conceived, is that as technology dislocates it, identity loses its meaning. By locating identity outside temporality, an d thus by breaking the rigidity of temporal structure of our conception of identity, however, we can then be open to the possibility of a sense of coherence in a posthuman reality, where the word coherence itself has been translated into the new semiotic environment to signify a quality perhaps much obscure to our current understanding of identity in time. If a sense of coherence suggested by my definition of collective identity is to be understood as semiotically based and thus illusory , then the field of movement is open for the construct, in both trans-cultural and trans-temporal senses of difference (see below).
The terms collectivity and membership are also highly problematic terms. People usually consider themselves a part not of one specific group, but of a number of collectivities simultaneously. These collectivities are often in undefined (if not problema tic) relation to one another, some mutually exclusive, some overlapping, some contained within the other, and so on. Collectivity may thus seem to be a challenging locus of reference, for identity or self-esteem. It appears, however, that collectivity is no more problematic as a locus of identity as is the subject, specifically if we adopt the non-positivist conception of the subject as unbound and permeable. It might be helpful at this point to briefly compare the two main views on identity and the self (to which I earlier referred as the anthropological vs. psychological) before I can better discuss collective identity.
The psychological self
The traditional western conceptualization(s) of self, identity, and the individual, often generically categorized under positivist approaches (and traced back as far as Platonic and Christian teachings, to th e more recent Cartesian and Kantian epistemological systems [see, for example, Lutz, 1988]); may be discussed against the non-traditional western conceptualization(s) which, in the absence of more precise terminology, I might broadly refer to as Nietzsche an-Derridian perspectives in recognition of the great influence these philosophers have had on articulation and assertion of such perspectives. Since any detailed imagemapping of these differences would be beyond the present papers capacity, I limit my discussions to those aspects more relevant to the concepts of collective identity and collective self-esteem.
A traditional western positivist understanding of the self has commonly been attributed to the American and European psychological and, by extension, social psychological perspectives; an attribution which, though perhaps too broad to be ju st, does not appear unjustified [Although see, for example, Murray (1993) for arguments against a historically western positivist tradition of understanding the self, or Ewing (1990) for an alternative perspective on such attribution]. Within t his perspective (to which I will refer alternatively as the traditional western or the psychological perspective) the self, though admittedly a difficult-to-pinpoint concept, has been assumed to be the "center" of the person, somewhat imaginab le as a "core" around which various personality aspects are arranged in a spherical manner and in varying distances from this core, according to their import in defining this person. More-or-less impermeable, this bounded core is then assumed to remain co ntinuous, and rather stable (or a derivative of such quality) through time. One of the main qualifiers of this perspective is the ascription of transcendence to the construct called self. Such transcendental self is conceptualized in associati on with the "universals of human nature or experience", often understood in terms of shared biological and/or psychological processes of the organism (Battaglia, 1995), and perceived as "an insoluble unit, fundamentally different from anything not human." (Roseman, 1990). In short then, the perspective attributed to the western (social) psychologys understanding of an individual might be broadly captured in Geertzs words, as a " bounded, unique, more or less integrated motivational and cogniti ve universe, a dynamic center of awareness, emotion, judgement, and action, organised into a distinctive whole and set contrastively against other such wholes and against a social and natural background" (Geertz, 1979).
One immediate implication of attributing wholeness to the self is the possibility of distinguishing between the individual and its surrounding environment, as Roseman (1990) or Geertz (1979) pointed out. Most importantly, such attribution will enab le a distinction between the individual and the society which is comprised of other, separate, individuals who are in turn whole, insoluble, and bounded around their own cores. The society which is made of the collection of these individuals then, is simp ly that. That is to say, even thought the individuals who make the society may indeed interact at influential levels with other individuals, the extent of such influence will be eventually determined by each recipient individuals self, o r in other words, the individual is essentially and theoretically capable of (if not necessarily able to, potentially capable of) separating its-self from the society surrounding him/her and thus limiting such influences. In the words of Kohut and Wolf (1978), the self becomes originally "crystallised" via an "interplay of inherited and environmental factors", and the end result is "the self, an independent centre of initiative, an independent recipient of impressions." It is this individual which has been referred to as an "autonomous distinctive individual living-in-society" (Shweder & Bourne, 1984).
As an example of this psychological understanding of the self embedded in the social psychological context, consider the way the role of the society has been incorporated within the notions of the self and identity in relation to the society. Henry Tajfel, founder of the Social Identity Theory, defines social identity as follows: "social identity is that part of an individuals self-concept which derives from his knowledge of his membership in a social group (or groups) together wi th the value and emotional significance attached to that membership" (Tajfel, 1981, p. 255). So a person has something called social identity which, as Tajfel envisions it, is derived by that person, from awareness of his/her membership in a s ocial group. Notice that in order for this relationship to hold, there must be an individual outside the society, which at the same time belongs inside that society, and in fact stands in the very middle of the society, is the center of that society, and decides how far the society may or may not influence his/her ways of being. In other words, not only is this individual a complete whole regardless of the society, the way the society does affect this individual is via the coming to b e of a "knowledge cloud" (which comes to be as a synthesis of the individual thought and the social conventions, perhaps) which the individual then analyses, and from which s/he then "derives" a certain sense of identity, and based on which s/he develops a sense of "value and emotional significance" regarding her/his membership in that group. As Levin (1992) describes it, the American academic psychology "tends to be tough-minded. It has little tolerance for abstract, the speculative, or the psychoanalyti c" (p. 126). The fact is that even those of this group who select less main-stream approaches to self and identity, like Cooley (e.g., 1902) or Mead (e.g., 1934) who ascribe great importance to semiological notions tend to do so within certain boundaries. Meads dialogical self, for example, appears in the first glance to be located in the semiotic realm. A closer look, however, shows that semiotics remains external to Meads self, a mediator between the subject and the surrounding s ociety. Unlike that of Wittgensteins, this subject is not a semiotic entity, even though it develops via semiotic means (see Mead 1934, for example). Cooleys subject seems also to look into the mirror to become who/what it become s, just like Lacans does. Once again, however, a closer look reveals that these two mirrors dont reflect the same thing: while Lacans mirror brings into being the self, Cooleys mirror simply allows an already-inquisitive self to ha ve a look at itself, to reflect upon itself. Even to the semiotically-inclined North American theories of self and identity, a claim like "the limit of my language means the limits of my world" (Wittgenstein, 1922, p. 117) may appear too extre me. It is tempting to follow the significance and implications of this perspective and the general social/political role of such conceptualization as a product of the capitalist economy. It is not this papers intention, however, to enter a detailed discussion of either perspective, and instead of a more in-depth discussion of the psychological perspective I now consider some of the views challenging the American psychological perspective.
Loosening the Empire: Other Conceptions of the Self
As Sampson (1989b) suggests, the opponents of the psychological perspective can be grouped under at least 6 main headings. The appearance and development of those disciplines of the human sciences dedicated to cros s-cultural observation of cultures Other to the Euroamerican traditions is seen to be of significance to the progression of these alternative perspectives on self and the individual, at both political and philosophical levels. Derrida (1 978) speaks of a recent historical "moment when a decentering had come about: at the moment when European culture -- and, in consequence, the history of metaphysics and of its concepts -- had been dislocated, driven from its locus, and forced to stop cons idering itself as the culture of reference" (p. 282). Specific historical/political events and eras may indeed become useful in signing the emergence of certain philosophical perspectives, as Derrida does, though this should certainly not be taken for a c ausal explanation of such changes. Perhaps an aftermath of the "moment" described by Derrida (1978), the recent trend of "cross-cultural investigation" (Sampson, 1989), (which I use here not to refer simply to the last few decades introduction of cr oss-cultural studies to different disciplines, but rather to the recent few centuries of mainly colonial interaction between the west and the rest) seems to have tremendously facilitated the progression and indeed the explosion of new western conceptual/p hilosophical trends challenging the traditional western views. Technological advancements providing considerably higher speeds and volumes of interaction and immigration at a global level and exploding international consumption rates have further provided fertile grounds for rapid political and social mushrooming of marginally-based efforts in decentralisation of power, politically, socially, and inevitably, philosophically and psychologically. As I discussed earlier, the gradual dislocation o f the center (or what is claimed to mean that) in various domains has been well represented within the human sciences occupied with the conception of the individual and the self. The dislocation of the centre from the self to the society, to the language, and eventually to nowhere has progressively created the most essential challenge to the old "bounded universe" (Geertz, 1979) which has been the western individual. A very interesting question which springs out of this discussion is why withi n the human and social sciences psychology should decide to ignore these challenges, and has managed to remain mostly non-permeable against these developments, faithful to the western tradition. Though again outside the limits of this paper, I find most convincing the arguments advocated by the critical theorists who have "located the current North American conception [of the individual, as psychologys subject] in the heartland of advanced capitalist ideology" (Sampson, 1989b, p. 2). It is worth mentioning before I move on, that as I suggested earlier the west, specifically North America has been the main source not only of colonialism, but also of developments that have unfolded the transformation from modernity to the postmodern condit ion. An important postmodern object, the Internet, for example, is not only a western phenomenon, but in fact a direct product of capitalist self-protection tactics (consider the case of ARPANET for example). It is ever ironic that while weste rn technology, backed by its complementary psychologies, contributes immensely to the development of the posthuman, it remains itself extremely resistant to considering the possibility of such transformation.
One may use Derridas description of the subject as "a system of relations" to refer to the most outstanding perspective raised to challenge western psychological idea of the individual. This "system of relations" does not have a center, and d evoid of any stable solid core, it is a process rather than a beginning or an end (Sampson, 1989b). Not only does this decentered self not function as the center of the society, it may not even be viewed as having a center: a process rather th an an essence. "Selfhood by this figuration", says Battaglia (1995), "is a chronically unstable productivity brought situationally --not invariably-- to some form of imaginary order, to some purpose, as realised in the course of culturally patterned inter actions" (p. 2).
It is worth mentioning that instead of seeing an epistemological difference between the views I have mentioned above, some have suggested a semiotic difference. Ewing (1990), argues for a general misunderstanding between the anthropological and psy chological views: while cultural anthropologists have argued that selves are "culturally shaped and infinitely variable," Kohut, has claimed that "every normally functioning, healthy adult has a bounded, cohesive self". Ewing in fact goes on t o suggest that even though these disciplines may think that their understandings of the self are in conflict, "they are, in fact, not talking about the same thing." She explains "semiotically constituted concepts of self" as the notion with which the _ 5;anthropological researchers are more often concerned, while what the psychological/ psychoanalytical literature refer to is often a, "pre-reflective self-experience". It is, according to her, this differential reference that initiates the psycho-/ anthropological debate over the nature of the self. Clearly the first premise of this argument is a dichotomization of self experience at the semiotic versus the pre-reflective levels. What such dichotomization would imply is that the pre-reflective self is not semiotically conceived, an argument that seems similar to that of North American semiological social psychologists, as I discussed earlier. While it might again be beyond the scope of this paper to enter a detailed discussion of this suggestion, I do not find Ewings (1990) distinction convincing. These differences arise not at a semiotic level as she proposes, but rather from two fundamentally different interpretations of the universe and what constitutes reality within this unive rse, and of what is or is not out there to be known.
Incidentally, Ewing (1990) does express in the same article a criticism of what she calls the anthropological assumption of a "single model of self or person", which "can be described in terms of a few key concepts and symbols", an assumption deriv ed from the understanding of cultures as coherent systems. Without intending any detailed discussion, this is an argument which I tend to interpret, in an indirect way, as again a criticism of the perception which has been traditionally attributed to the psychological conception of its subject, at a social/cultural level. And this criticism does not appear to be attributing the difference between the two perceptions of culture to semiotic miscommunication.
A collective illusion
An important argument within Ewings (1990) article is her suggestion of a semiotically-constructed illusion of wholeness, a cohesive self which, though may not be described as anything more than a reifi ed idea, nonetheless bears important implications for any work, specifically any cross-culturally oriented study of self and identity. Such wholes, she argues, "are fleeting, [but] they are experienced as timeless." (p. 263). I find this argument importan t since I tend to locate the notion of collective identity within this very illusory realm. It is possible to raise the argument that, given the existence of such illusory context, it is logically sound to explore the construction of this illusion, and to study the various representations of such construction in the individuals behaviour and interactions. It is, in other words, exactly within this semiotic realm that I would locate the sense of identity, and it is in reference to this illusory ;collectiveness (to which Fernandez (1986) refers as a "conviction of wholeness") that I suggest a persons perception of his/her collectivity to be understood.
What I am suggesting is that what --and perhaps the only thing that-- individuals sharing a culture actually share is the "conviction", or rather, the illusion that they share a common system of values and perspectives. In o ther words, not only do I consider the perception of oneself as a stable, coherent, and continuous source of action an "illusion" as Ewing (1990) suggests, but further, what is normally referred to as "culture" I regard as an imagined space where persons who are the members of that specific collectivity believe to share sets of values and symbols. These sets of values, beliefs, and symbols may indeed be empirically found to be incoherent and diverse, despite the sincere conviction of each member of the gr oup that what s/he shares with others is a set of similar perspectives. This semiotically constructed collective illusion (or illusion of collectivity) gives birth to a world, in a phenomenological sense, within each individual, wh erein every member of the culture including one-self is represented and shares a set of values as the group. Discrepant relationship between value system and self-categorization, for example, can be explained with this model . If it is not the empirical similarity of values or behaviour schema that rigidly establishes a persons sense of collective identity, then it would be possible to have discrepancies between the group a person might appear to belong to, and the group that person actually believes to belong to. As I will argue later, this model also accommodates the fact that an individual could have multiple collective identities without experiencing internal discrepancy as a coherent psychological agent .
Ewing (1990) argues for a system of self-representation utilised, along with the representations of others, towards the constitution of a "symbolic whole". Even though she does not enter into further details regarding the representations of others and considers the role of such representation only with regard to the processes which constitute the "illusion of an ongoing experience" of the self as an individual, I would like to extend her arguments in discussing the semiotic experience which constit utes identification with a group, or collective identity. Fernandez (1986) and Ewing (1990) present interesting arguments for an illusory sense of " wholeness" with respect to the individual sense of the self (Ewing), and "religious culture" (Fernandez). I find both their arguments similarly applicable to the "whole" generally referred to --and experienced-- as "culture". As per Ewing, I agree that such ambiguity-based semiotic devices and processes as metonymy, analogy, and metaphor (which are also sugge sted by Fernandez, and Ewing [1990] tries to capture in psychoanalytic terms) can not only explain the conviction of wholeness within a religious context, but may also be further employed to describe "the processes people use to organise and to interpret their sense of self", since they use "the same semiotic processes to constitute experience in all situations" in doing so (p. 265). In extending Ewings arguments I propose that culture, conceived and experienced by the members of a specific group as a commonly shared space, is also a semiotically-constructed psychological experience (of the individual member), and that such semiotic devices and processes as described by Fernandez and Ewing can be considered fundamental for the existence and maintena nce of this space and the individuals sense of identification with and within this imagined whole.
Conclusion
The advantages of a semiotic model
A semiotic understanding of both self and identity offers a way of establishing notions of self and identity outside temporality, so that the question of self-identification can be conceived free from the que stion of stability over time. As mentioned earlier, the semiotic model is also able to accommodate the self/others categorisation discrepancy, i.e., the discrepancy between an individuals own belief of what culture s/he belongs to and th e others perception of her/his social and cultural patterns of behaviour and value system. A next advantage of this model of interpretation would be that the fact of "multiple-belonging" or the individuals compartmentalisation of his/her simul taneous identifications with groups which may stand in differential positions to one another can be explained in a manner very similar to what Ewing (1990) utilises to explain the phenomenon she calls "shifting selves" (p. 268), to which I referred earlie r in discussing multiplicity and fragmentation. In this fashion contradictions (collective or personal) can be contained within the psychic structure, without necessarily causing the whole to deconstruct itself in the atomistic search of the Whole (for a psychoanalytic articulation of this concept see also Ewings [1990] suggestion of the term "contextual unconscious"), thus making possible a sense of identity in the absence of wholeness or temporal permanence. To use the well-known thread-and-beads analogy then, this models notion of the differential cultural contextuality of the self may be visualised as a series of threads stretching in various directions (instead of a single thread suggested by Mead and utilised by Ewing or others), with be ads which, rather than being structured statically in one specific order and around one specific thread, are capable of changing threads in a fluid state as demanded by the cognitive/psychological representations of the environment.
A concept-to-work-with
At this point I would like to propose the conditional use of such concepts as collective identity and collective self-esteem as defined above, i.e., as semiotically-conceived phenomena which are psychologically experienc ed, and at times cognitively perceived (hence the psychological self-concept as a quantifiable construct). The state of conditionality arises on two grounds, philosophical, and political. Philosophically, the legitimacy of using such construct s would be contingent on the basic understanding of such constructs as mere violence, imposed out of a perceived need for an epistemological model, and nothing more than that. In this case, for example, it would be important to note that even though the s uggestion of a collective identity which exists only as a semiotic construct experienced by another illusory entity called the individual is by definition not grounded in an essentialist interpretation, nonetheless all this does not deprive the model of political implications, nor of an inherent quality of violence. It is for this reason then that the awareness of such models being nothing more than just that becomes important.
I would further like to address the political and practical need for a system of representation based on a structured interpretation of the set of relationalities constituting the world, the individual, and the society. Even though impo sition of structurality is generally known by postmodernism ( take Lyotard or Rorty, for example) as a betrayal of the tenets of the philosophies of difference, and even though it may indeed be so at a philosophical level, I would like to argue again (see above) that given the already imposed sense of structure to which we are born, I cannot possibly imagine any political resistance without reification of certain concepts such as collectivity and solidarity, nor can I imagine a study of increa singly serious global developments without some conceptualization of identity at both individual and collective levels. What may appear to be a sincere loyalty to the cause of philosophy, may lead to a cruel deprivation of the marginalised (ironically eno ugh, for whose sake most such theories claim to thrive) of the one and only means of empowerment they can have in the face of an overwhelmingly progressed system of impositions, i.e. a sense of collectivity and solidarity.
In short, I emphasise that it is important to remember that any model of understanding is by definition already a systematised violence, and specifically, any model which approaches the idea of structure away from a decenterisation and a system of differences takes on the challenge and the risk of succumbing to the "terroristic" demands of the status quo, as Rorty would suggest. I would like to also emphasise, however, that the constructs I have suggested as objects-to-work-with are understo od and located within a semiotic and illusory field of fragments in motion, which is indeed always already decentered, given the non-essentialist model of the individual and identity in which these notions are introduced; and that it is also important in any effort in dealing with the marginalised to not render the very subjects of that effort powerless, which I believe to be problematic with many major philosophical and scientific claims that locate themselves within the domains r ecognised as, or associated with deconstructionism, poststructuralism, and postmodernism.
A final note on politics
In a final analysis, the postcolonial/postmodern tension deserves much more detailed articulation than it has been given in this paper. The daily political concerns of the millions of humans affli cted by the aftermath of the imperial greed which fuelled colonialism and which has been reproduced and fortified through the capitalist cultural logic is not likely to dissipate in a postmodern context. The truth is that postmodernism is itself the cultu ral product of western capitalism, and is thus bound to embellish the universe in which it has been conceived. The postmodern culture may indeed be "on the way to spreading to all humanity" (Lyotard, 1991, p. 64), but this is as much good news as bad. It extends beyond this paper, or my ability, to predict the hows and whys of this spread, but what is clear in advance is the double-edged-ness of the postmodern condition. It is simply my wish to argue from the position Jameson (1984) so well describes as t he perspective that affords an understanding of "the cultural evolution of late capitalism dialectically, as catastrophe and progress all together" (p. 86).
The ideas of decentered politics, societies without margins, and local narratives replacing universal ones may all have a tempting utopian ring, but the less admitted question is the significance of all these notions coming from 146; a western capitalist reality. The postmodern condition is not a desirable place for the modern or the premodern human, they will fail to find traces of their values and hopes, they will fail to find depth and unearthable meaning. To repeat Jameson, i t is worth remembering " the obvious, namely that this whole global, yet American, postmodern culture is the internal and superstructural expression of a whole new wave of American military and economic domination throughout the world: in this sense, as t hroughout class history, the underside of culture is blood, torture, death and horror" (1984, p. 57). And by extension of the same argument, my introduction of the posthuman idea is already built upon such duality: the dreadful beauty of the temptation th at bewitches our species to constantly move towards a self-annihilation which serves the continuation of life itself through our disintegrated existence. Life which can live only through death. The posthuman is not a better human, nor is it st ronger or more aesthetically pleasing. The posthuman begins at the point where human values and beauties as we know them are no longer in effect, no longer valued no longer beautiful. The posthuman lives where the human dies, it is not a pleasant dream, n or a utopianistic mirage at the edge of the capitalist wasteland: it is the capitalist wasteland all the way, catastrophe and progress, catastrophe of progress.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
lund, A. (1997). The quest for identity: modern strangers and new/old ethnicites in Europe. In H. R. Wicker (Ed.) Rethinking nationalism & ethnicity: the struggle for meaning and order in Europe. (pp. 91-109). New York: Berg.
Anderson, B. (1991). Imagined communities: reflections on the origins and spread of nationalism. London: Verso.
Anderson, R., Hughes, J. and Sharrock, W. (1986). Philosophy and the human sciences. London: Routledge.
Appiah, K. A. (1992). In my fathers house: Africa in the philosophy of culture. London: Methuen.
Ashcroft, B., Griffiths, G., & Tiffin, H. (Eds.). (1995). The post-colonial studies reader. London: Routledge.
Ashmore, R. D. & Jussim, L. (1997). Toward a second century of the scientific analysis of self and identity. In R. Ashmore and L. Jussim (Eds.) Self and identity: fundamental issues, (pp. 4-19). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Baldwin, J. M. (1897). Social and ethical interpretations in mental development. New York: McMillan.
Banaji, M. R. & Prentice, D. A. (1994). The self in social contexts. Annual review of psychology, 45, 297-332.
Banister, P., Burman, E., Parker, I., Taylor, M., & Tindall, C. (1994). Qualitative methods in psychology: a research guide. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Battaglia, D. (1995). Problematizing the self: a thematic introduction. In D. Battaglia (Ed.), Rhetorics of Self-Making, 1-15.
Baudrillard, J. (1983). Simulations. New York: Semiotext(e).
Baudrillard, J. (1987). The evil demon of images. Annandale: Power Institute.
Baudrillard, J. (1991). LAmerique ou la pense de lespace. Citoyennet et urbanit. Paris: Esprit, pp. 155-164.
Baudrillard, J. (1993). Symbolic exchange and death. London: Sage Publications.
Bauman, Z. (1995). Life in Fragments: Essays in postmodern morality. Cambridge: Blackwell.
Cardena, E. (1994). The domain of dissociation. In S. J. Lynn and J. W. Rhue (Eds.), Dissociation: Clinical and theoretical perspectives (pp. 15-31). New York: Guilford Press.
Chodorkoff, B. (1954). Self-perception, perceptual defense, and adjustment. of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 49, 508- 512.
Cooley, C. H. (1902). Human nature and the social order. New York: Scribners.
Deleuze, G.; and Guattari, F. (1977). Anti-Oedipus: capitalism and schizophrenia. Trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen Lane. New York: Vicking.
Derrida, J. (1978). Writing and Differance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Descartes, R. (1952). Meditations on first philosophy. New York: Library of the Liberal Arts (Original publication, 1642).
Donald, M. (1993). Origins of the modern mind: three stages in the evolution of culture and cognition. London: Harvard University Press.
Douglas, M. (1966). Purity and danger: An analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo. New York: Praeger.
Eco, U. (1976). A theory of semiotics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Engels, F. (1949). Dialectics of Nature. New York: International Publishers.
Epstein, S. (1973). The self-concept revisited: or a theory of a theory. American Psychologist, 28, 404-416.
Erikson, E. (1959). Identity and life cycle. New York: International Universities Press.
Erikson, E. (1968). Identity, youth, and crisis. New York: Norton.
Ewing, K. (1990). The illusion of wholeness: culture, self, and theexperience of inconsistency. Ethos, 18, 251-278.
Fairbairn, W. R. D. (1952). Psychoanalytic Studies of the Personality. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Fernandez, J. W. (1986). The argument of images and the experience of returning to the whole. In V. W. Turner and E. M. Bruner (Eds.), The anthropology of experience, 159-187. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Geertz, C. (1979). From the Natives point of view: on the nature of anthropological understanding. In P. Rabinow and W. M. Sullivan (Eds.) Interpretive social science, 225-241. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Glass, J. M. (1993) Shattered Selves: Multiple Personality in a PostmodernWorld, London: Cornell University Press.
Gergen, K. J. (1991). The saturated self: dilemmas of identity in contemporary life. New York: Basic Books.
Golding, P. (1995). Public attitudes to social exclusion: some problems of measurement and analysis. In R. Room (Ed.) Beyond the Threshold: the measurement and analysis of social exclusion. University of Bristol: Policy Press.
Greenwald, A. G., & Banaji, M. R. (1995). Implicit social cognition: attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes. Psychological Review, 102(1), 4-27.
Guntrip, H. (1971). Psychoanalytic Theory, Therapy, and the Self. New York: Basic Books.
Habermas, J. (1976). Legitimization Crisis. London: Heinemann.
Hacking, I. (1995). Rewriting the Soul: Multiple personality and the sciences of memory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Hallowell, A. I. (1955). Culture and Experience . Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Haraway, D. J. (1985). Manifesto for cyborgs: science, technology, and socialist femminism in the 1980s. Socialist Review, 80, 65-108.
Haraway, D. J. (1997). Modest_witness@second_millennium. FemaleMan meets_OncoMouse : femminism and technoscience. New York: Routledge.
Harvey, D. (1989). The condition of postmodernity. Oxford: Blackwell.
Hermans, H. J. M., & Kempen, H. J. G. (1993). The Dialogical Self. New York: Academic Press.
Hermans, H. J. M., Kempen, H. J. G., & van Loon, R. J. P. (1992). The dialogical self: beyond individualism and rationalism. American Psychologist, 47, 23-33.
Honigmann, J. (1967). Personality in culture. New York: Harper and Row.
Ignatieff, M. (1994). Blood and belonging: Journey into the new nationalism. London: Vintage Books.
Inchausti, R. (1991). The Ignorant Perfection of Ordinary People. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
James, W. (1890). Principles of Psychology. New York: Holt. (1983; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
Jameson, F. (1984). Postmodernism or the cultural logic of late capitalism. New left review, 146, 52-92.
Jameson, F. (1984-b). Foreword, in J. F. Lyotard, The postmodern condition: a report on knowledge. (pp. vii-xxi). Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Jones, C. (1985). Patterns of Social Policy: an introduction to comparative analysis. London: Tavistock.
Jung, C. G. (1945). The relations between the ego and the unconscious. In Collected Works (17). Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Kihlstrom, J. F. (1995). Dissociation: its ba-ack! [Review of R. M. Klein and B. K. Doane (Eds.), Psychological Concepts and Dissociative Disorders (Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum)] Contemporary Psychology , 49, 949-950.
Klapp, O. E. (1969). Collective search for identity. New York: Holt, Reinhart, and Winston Inc.
Klein, R. M., & Doane, B. K. (Eds.) (1994). Psychological Concepts and Dissociative Diesorders. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Klukhohn, C.; & Mowrer, O. H. (1944). Culture and personality: a conceptual scheme. American anthropology. 46, 1-29.
Kohut, H. (1977). The Restoration of the Self. New York: International Universities Press.
Kohut, H. & Wolf, E. S. (1978). The disorders of the self and their treatment: an outline. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 59, 413-425.
Lawrence, P. (1988). In another country. In A. Bryman (Ed.) Doing Research in Organisations. London: Routledge.
Lecky, P. (1945). Self-consistency: A Theory of Personality. New York: Island.
Lerner, D. (1959). The passing of traditional society. New York: Free Press.
Levin, C. (1996). Jean Baudrillard: a study in cultural metaphysics. London: Prentice Hall.
Levin, J. D. (1992). Theories of the self. Washington, DC: Taylor & Francis.
Lifton, R. J. (1993). The protean self: Human resilience in an age of fragmentation. New York: Basic Books.
Lutz, C. (1988). Unnatural emotions: everyday sentiments of a Micronesian Atoll and their challenge to western theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lyotard, J. F. (1984). The postmodern condition: A report on knowledge. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Lyotard, J. F. (1991) The inhuman: Reflections on time. Trans. G. Bennington & R. Bowlby. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Markus, H., and Herzog, A. R. (1991). The role of the self-concept in aging. Annual review of gerontology and geriatrics. 11, 110-143.
Markus, H., and Wurf, E. (1987). The dynamic self-concept: a social psychological perspective. Annual Review of Psychology, 38, 299-337.
Marsella, A. J.; DeVos, G.; & Hsu, F. (1985). Culture and self. New York: Tavistock Publications.
Marx, K. (1844). The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. New York: International Publishers (1964).
May, T. (1997). Social Research: Issues, Methods, and process. Buckingham: Open University Press.
McAdams, D. P. (1995). What do we know when we know a person? Journal of Personality, 63, 363-396.
McAdams, D. P. (1997). The case for unity in the (post)modern self: a modest proposal. In R. D. Ashmore & L. Jussim (Eds.), Self and Identity: Fundamental Issues. (pp. 46-78). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self, and society from the standpoint of a social behaviourist. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Melucci, A. (1996). Challenging codes: Collective action in the information age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Murray, E. W. (1993). Whats the western concept of the self? On forgetting David Hume. Ethos. 21 (1), 3-23.
Obeyesekere, G. (1981). Medusas hair: an essay on personal symbols and religious experience. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Pefanis, J. (1991). Heterology and the Postmodern: Bataille, Baudrillard, and Lyotard. London: Duke University Press.
Porter, J. R., & Washington, R. E. (1993). Minority identity and self-esteem. Annual review of sociology, 19, 139-161.
Rogers, T. B. (1981). A model of the self as an aspect of humaninformation processing system. In N. Cantor and J. F. Kihlstrom (Eds.), Personality, cognition, and social interaction (pp. 193-214). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Rogers, T. B, Kuiper, N. A., & Kirker, W. S. (1977). Self-reference and the encoding of personal information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 677-688.
Roseman, M. (1990). Head, heart, odor, and shadow: the structure of the self, the emotional world, and ritual performance among Senoi Temiar. Ethos, 18, 227-250.
Rosenberg, S. (1997). Multiplicity of Selves. In R. D. Ashmore & L. Jussim (Eds.), Self and Identity: Fundamental issues. (pp. 23-45). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Russel, B. (1921). The Analysis of Mind. London: Allen & Unwin.
Sampson, E. E. (1989a). The challenge of social change for psychology: Globalization and psychologys theory of the person. American Psychologist, 44, 914-921.
Sampson, E. E. (1989b). The deconstruction of the self. In J. Shotter and K. J. Gergen (Eds.), Texts of Identity (pp. 1-19). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Shedler, J., Mayman, M., & Manis, M. (1993). The illusion of mental health. American Psychologist, 48(11), 1117-1131.
Shweder, R. & Bourne, E. (1984). Does the concept of the person vary cross-culturally? In R. Shweder and R. Levine (Eds.) Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, and Emotion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Smith, M. B. (1994). Selfhood at risk: postmodern perils and the perils of postmodernism. American Psychologist, 49, 405- 411.
Spanos, N. P. (1994). Multiple identity enactments and multiple personality disorder: a socio-cognitive perspective. Psychological Bulletin, 116, 143-165.
Swann, W. J., Jr. (1983). Self-verification: Bringing social reality into harmony with the self. In J. Suls and A. G. Greenwald (Eds.), Psychologi
