SOC 202 Chapter 6: Identity and the Body

• School: Ryerson University
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 202
• Professor: Curtis Maloley

Document Summary

Bree"s character raises conventional questions abt relationship between identity, behaviour, and biology. Explores role of genetics in defining identity from the parent-child relationship angle. Essentialist theories: identities are fundamental, unchanging and precedes and transcends culture and politics. Identity legitimized through its grounding in nature or history: unbroken line of development whose truth is unquestionable. Social constructivist theories: identities are constructed depending on the cultural and political circumstances. Emphasizes the complex process through which narratives of identity express broader social relations, including relations to power. Relations are invisible to the extent that identities are naturalized or essentialized (taught to be something inherent within an individual or group). Genetics provide broad parameters for what we can do, think, or feel. ingredients to establish the storylines (narratives) of who we think we are. Distinction of mind, self and identity to physical body has been confounded.