Spatially active identity as an idea of “territory of freedom

• Format: Article
• Language: Russian
• Published: Russian Academy of Sciences, Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology 2008-09-01
• Series: Социологический журнал
• Online Access: http://jour.fnisc.ru/upload/journals/1/articles/1020/submission/proof/1020-61-1902-1-10-20150320.pdf

The article describes an interactionist, special and activist conception of individual social identity, based on a sociological understanding of un/freedom to act. “Social identity” is interpreted after H. Tajfel (as a regulatory cognitive entity), as “knowledge of one’s belonging to a certain social group added by emotional and evaluative aspects”. Adapting to the social environment and structuring the “infinite variety of environmental stimuli”, every actor categorizes the others’ selves as well as her / his own self. Self-definition of the individual's place in an environment is taken as her / his social identity.But identity is always a temporary, and changeable inconclusive result of self-identification by an individual with certain social roles in a particular segment of the social space. Taken in the cognitive aspect, identity is a snapshot of identification process, a permanent (re)production of individual self-determination in the course of social interactions with significant others.Taken in the observable, behavioral aspect, (positive) social identity is a representation of a “territory” for the positive freedom (“freedom-for” in terms of I. Berlin), i.e. such segments of the social space, where an actor is ready for the voluntary implementation of social roles with high involvement. A space wherean actor does not see her / himself as an actor is thought in negative sense and generates a negative self-determination.The conception includes the 9 theses to reveal the necessary conditions (the presupposition) for an individual interprets a certain social space as a territory of positive freedom to act. The 9 theses are synthetized in a definition of individual’s social identification — daily and mutually oriented accepting to belong to a group, its boundaries, rules and hierarchies, which manifests itself in a positive freedom to act and, at the same time, causes it.The conception is designed to give a broad notion of the identity a terminological rigor, as well as a theoretical framework to analyze (in both quantitative and qualitative data) not only the cognitive and emotional ones, but also the behavioral aspect of social identity.