Identity/politics: Strategy and structure

I argue that the potential of social constructivist thought to offer unique ways of understanding and engaging in the politics of identity has not been realized within existing constructivist models. My constructivist model examines the strategic processes of identity construction occurring within specific political, legal and cultural contexts. The theoretical center of my model is rooted primarily in the writings of Foucault and involves bringing together the structural emphases of his archeological period with the genealogical focus on strategy and power in his later work. I argue that much of contemporary politics surrounding sexuality consists of contestations aimed at stabilizing and giving meaning to sexual identity. Actions aimed at altering existing identity relations thus function within a dialectic in which the accumulation of differing political strategies form identity structures and these structures, in turn, give meaning to strategies. I contrast my model with existing formulations of social construction, examining the relations between theory and politics in the dominant social science and psychoanalytic variants of constructivist thought. I argue that these models fail to adequately analyze the social and political processes through which identity is continuously being (re)constructed and are thus disconnected from that which they desire to subvert. By examining the workings of identity structures, my model provides important tools for analyzing and transforming ongoing contestations involving identity.