50 likes | 173 Vues
This work explores identity from a geographical viewpoint, emphasizing how we are shaped by narratives—both imposed and self-constructed—within specific socio-spatial contexts. We analyze the role of geographical sites such as home, school, and community in negotiating identities, considering tensions between various societal definitions (e.g., 'adult' vs. 'child'). Mobility influences our understanding of self and other, highlighting the relational nature of identities and their dependence on the interplay between local and global contexts. This research underscores the significance of space and place in identity formation processes.
E N D
Identity: a geographical perspective Deborah Sporton, Dept. of Geography, University of Sheffield. D.Sporton@sheffield.ac.uk & Gill Valentine, School of Geography, University of Leeds G.Valentine@leeds.ac.uk
Narrative Approach to Identity • We are located within narratives not of our own making (e.g. ‘child’, ‘asylum seeker’) • We choose to construct narratives of the self that draw on particular interpretative repertoires (recast available narratives, ‘fateful moments’ etc.) • Not in a vacuum: space and place matter!
Identities are spatially constituted Identities are actively accomplished in/through geographical sites: • Specific identity practices at home, school & community Socio-spatial tensions: • Negotiate competing definitions of ‘identity’ from these sites and wider society e.g. ‘adult’ at home v child at school e.g. Somali community identity v achievement at school
Geographical Imagination • Identities depend constitutively on difference: self/other (Said) • Understandings of self & other are shaped through mobility ‘To travel can consist in operating a profoundly unsettling inversion of one’s identity: I become me via an other…Travelling allows one to see things differently from what they are, differently from how one has seen them and differently from what one is…’Trinh Min-ha 1994: 23)’. • Awareness of and attachment to place: ‘home’, tensions between different cultural values. • Global-local • Insular or a progressive sense of place (Massey)
Implications for other projects Role of space and place in identity formation? • Specific sites in/through which identity accomplished • Socio-spatial tensions in (dis) identification processes • Geographical imagination: relational nature of identity formation • Local-global • Sense of place