Identity

"As Bourdieu simply but sagely says, "The fare of groups is bound up with the words that designate them" (qtd. in Bauman & Lyon, 2013, p. 150).

According to Gee, we create identities in certain terms. First we have “Social Distance” which is were "[w]e can distinguish here among intimates, associates, and strangers. Who counts as an intimate, associate, or stranger differs by social groups and cultures and can change over time, of course" (Gee, 1999, p. 22). Second, there are “Socially significant kinds of people”: The identities we are talking about here are identities that are enacted and recognized by different social groups and social and cultural formations in society. They are situated in the sense that they are enacted, recognized, and construed in specific (partially conventional) ways in, and for, specific contexts as these contexts exist, and as they are simultaneously construed and constructed" (p. 23).

Burke's concept of identification relates to the idea of ethos where one "invites the audience to participate in a cosubstantial relationship with that image" (p. 23).

According to Gee (2013), "Some people dislike the term “situated identity” and prefer, instead, something like “(social) position” or “subjectivity” (they tend to reserve the term “identity” for a sense of self that is relatively continuous and “fi xed” over time). I use the term “identity” (or, to be specifi c, “socially-situated identity”) for the multiple identities we take on in different practices and contexts and would use the term “core identity” for whatever continuous and relatively (but only relatively) “fi xed” sense of self underlies our contextually shifting multiple identities" (p. 58).

Surveillance

Identity in a time of surveillance is often contradictory. According to Jewkes (2004), while some show how it is easy to create an alternative identity on the internet or buy forged documents (p. 183), at the same time, ID cards and other networks of information are fixing our identities with assemblages of biometric, credit, and other data (p. 182). Additionally, not all criminals have spoiled identities (Stalder and Lyon, 2003: 85), so you can’t always predict who will do what (p. 183).

Big Data

Richards and King (2014) have the following discussion about the effects of BD on identity:

"Identity can mean many things. It can refer to the association of a specific name to a specific person. Indeed, entire industries of identity management and identity protection now exist to protect this kind of identity. Identity can also mean whether something is the same as something or someone else, as it is treated in evidence law. Philosophers have also long debated and tried to define identity in this fashion. In this debate, the identity of a thing, including a person, is comprised of those properties or qualities which make it that thing. The problem with the philosophical definition of identity is that if you change the properties or qualities of the thing, you no longer have the same thing. We want to think of identity in a third way, as "something deeper, more mysterious, and more important." Psychologist Erik Erikson observed this kind of identity as "a process 'located' in the core of the individual and yet also in the core of his communal culture, a process which establishes, in fact, the identity of those two identities." Julie Cohen observes, "Selfhood and social shaping are not mutually exclusive. Subjectivity, and hence selfhood, exists in the space between the experience of autonomous selfhood and the reality of social shaping." Cohen goes on to assert that "[people are born into networks of relationships, practices, and beliefs, and over time encounter and experiment with others, engaging in a diverse and ad hoc mix of practices that defies neat theoretical simplification." This kind of identity is the fundamental right to define who I am. This is the idea that we can define our own identities; we can say whether "I am me; I am anonymous. I am here; I am there. I am watching; I am buying. I am a supporter; I am a critic. I am voting; I am abstaining. I am for; I am against. I like; I do not like." We can understand many of the protections of constitutional law in these terms-especially the political, religious, and social rights protected by the First Amendment. Indeed, our constitutional design suggests that the people, the "I am," would govern who "we are" and not the other way around....We think and act differently when we use different technologies to express ourselves or live our lives, from speaking to reading to letter writing to Google. Big data technology combined with the scaleand pace of the big metadata computer medium will change not only how we express ourselves but how we make decisions about who we are" (422-24).

References:

Jansson and Christensen (2014) state that Giddens (1991) notes that "a sense of ontological security, that is, basic trust in the sustainability of one's Self, depends on two complementary aspects: on the one hand, the maintenance of a personal, autonomous existence; and on the other hand, integration in social environments through which identity can achieve conformation (p.6)

Bauman, Z. & Lyon, D. (2013). Liquid surveillance. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Gee, J.P. (2013). An introduction to discourse analysis theory and method. London: Routledge.

Jansson, A.,& Christensen, M. (2014). Media, surveillance and identity: Social perspective. New York: Peter Lang.

Jewkes, Y. (2004). Crime and the Surveillance Culture. In Media & Crime: Key Approaches to Criminology (pp. 171-198). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

Killingsworth, M. J & Palmer, J.S. (1992). Ecospeak: Rhetoric and environmental politics in america. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP.

Richards, N.M., & King, J.H. (2014). Big Data Ethics. Wake Forest Law Review, 49.2, 393-432.