Synthesis philosophica, Vol. 26 No. 1, 2011.
Preliminary communication
An Anthropological Conceptualisation of Identity
Zagorka Golubović
; Belgrade, Serbia
Abstract
The anthropological approach to the concept of identity is needed because “identity” (either personal or collective) is not naturally “given”, but it is culturally defined and constituted, for human beings live in cultural settings as “a second nature of man”; so they are humanly conditioned and conceptualised in different “ways of peoples’ lives”. Being that culture makes an essential context of social life and of the personality foundation, it provides the pattern of the common way of living and thinking of the communal experiences as a value-referential framework upon which definitions and interpretations of identities rely. Thereby, cultural paradigm enables researches to understand what identity (collective and personal) expresses in different socio-historical conditions and ideological connotations, assuming that this concept is dynamic vs. the other one, e.g. national pattern of identity which is narrow as well as exclusive; and as a static category, it does not suppose possibility of change. In the paper a traditionally oriented conceptualisation of identity in Serbia will be also treated, together with its influence upon the slow changes within a democratic transition during the new millennium.
Keywords
anthropological conceptualisation of identity; identification; individuation; cultural pattern of identity; national pattern of identity
Hrčak ID:
72477
URI
Publication date:
23.8.2011.
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