Conflict Theory: A Non-Essentialist View Of Identity

A non-essentialist view of identity approaches the concept as both a transitory process of becoming and a spatiotemporally fixed product, specific to the lived realities of individuals and groups. When analyzing conflict, it is most useful to understand the process of identity as manifesting in specific places and times, within particular relationships, to achieve discreet ends. Identity entails a series of negotiations between individuals, groups, structures, and cultures. Maintaining critical awareness of this process (Cook-Huffman’s “project”) keeps conflict analysis available to explore modes of connectedness and understanding in both personal and communal identities. An awareness of how these relate, within themselves, to one another,
If identities and identity needs are seen as incontrovertible, they can be a ready source of conflict escalation. Viewed in an essentialist way, identity is decontextualized and reconceived as fixed, rather than a fluid product of unfolding relational processes. Therefore we should ask the question, are identity needs part of some universal ‘human nature’? Or do differences between identities (and the processes that form identities) also result in differently perceived needs? If this is the case, then asserting the non-negotiability of identity and identity needs becomes something other than an intrinsic characteristic of identity itself. It becomes a way of exerting power, or
An anti-essentialist view of identity calls for a culture that exhibits characteristics of internal hybridity, polyvocality, fluidity, and the possibility of ever re-negotiable constructions of meaning and signification. However, by viewing certain elements of identity within societal structures as non-negotiable a group seeks affirmation (sometimes a very basic ‘ontological’ security), and viable transmission to succeeding generations. While this can certainly be achieved self-critically, it calls into question the goals of cultural continuity and the contrast between essentialist and anti-essentialist perspectives, as well as the non/negotiability of