IDENTITIES
IDENTITY by Henriette Dahan Kalev
An identity is a concept that signifies a compilation of dimensions that are related to a subject or a collective of subjects, by oneself or others. The identity dimensions have different contents and they function for the self or the others to identify a subject or a group of subjects. A subject often has a multi dimensional identity and therefore has a complex self. For example one can have a religious orientation, say Jewish; have a certain status, bourgeois; a certain origin, American; a certain gender orientation,straight; and a certain citizenship, Israeli. Hence, one multi-dimensional identity could be: Jewish- bourgeois-American-straight-Israeli.
The order of identity dimensions is dynamic and can change according to self- interest and other’s interests. For example, in Israel one would prefer to be perceived first as a Jew, but in an anti-Semitic country he/she might prefer to hide it to avoid persecution. Moreover, some of the identity dimensions can be chosen while others are immanent. The key to understanding how identity dimensions are selected or imposed is embedded in power relations within society. One could find him/herself in the center or at the margin of a given society because of traits that he/she cannot control such as skin color. In this respect the skin color is an identity dimension that influences the status of the person. There are other identity dimensions that can be developed as a result of puberty, such as sexual identity and moral identity. There are identity dimensions that are purchased as a result of changes and transformations that one experiences, such as culture and class dimension.
Henriette Dahan Kalev is the head of the Gender Studies Program in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Ben Gurion University.
IDENTITY by Khansaa Diab
Concern with identity – a modern phenomenon that gives meaning to a person’s life. Providing an identity starts with its validation for a group of people, following which, it is also applied to places, sites (that become national), and land that becomes territory.
The involvement with the question of the individual’s collective identity intensifies when there is increased awareness of the existence of the individual who is separate from the collective, and to the existence of collectives that differ from each other within the same national/state framework.
Modern man has a basic need to seek meaning; identity is one of the tools for seeking this meaning.
National identity affords the most important collective identity in the modern era; it assumes the existence of the individual as an autonomous person who identifies with nationalism.
One of the most accepted definitions of identity is that proposed by Miller, who defines the term as a set of observable and inferable attributes that identify a person to himself and to others. He differentiates between objective public identity, i.e., the person is seen by others, subjective public identity, i.e., the person’s perception of how others see him, and self-identity, i.e., the person as he sees himself.
Rosenberg distinguishes between the core and the sub-identities in self-identity. The core, whose attributes are to be found in interaction with all the elements outside of it, organizes identity. The attributes usually consolidate at an early stage in the individual’s life and are hard to change. Sub-identities refer to the social roles and to the individual’s group belonging. Belonging to a group can focus around several elements: physical-hereditary attributes, religion, language, culture and national origin, each of which can afford a focus for formulating collective identity: civil identity (state), local identity (place of residence), family or Hamula (clan or extended family) identity, national identity, religious identity and professional identity.
Stephan and Stephan differentiate between two types of main identity:
- Personal identity – composed of those aspects of the self based on individual attributes such as personality characteristics;
- Social identity – composed of those aspects of the self based on group membership. Stephan and Stephan assert that a negative connection exists between personal and social identity. If people emphasize themselves as unique individuals, they do not usually stress their group belonging and vice versa.
2. The identity of the Palestinian minority in Israel
The collective identity of the Palestinians in Israel comprises several main components or circles: Israeli, Palestinian, Arab and Islamic/Christian. Palestinians in Israel see their identity as comprised primarily of these four aspects, a fusion with a delicate balance between them, or as one circle displacing another circle. This creates an ongoing identity crisis, constantly changing with the varying conditions.
The relative importance of the components of identity is not fixed and may change from time to time. Following is a description of the development of the collective identity of the Palestinian minority in Israel after 1948. Mi’ari, and later Amara and Kabhaa, observe three stages in the development of the collective identity of Palestinians in Israel.
Identity crisis
Who is the Arab who lives in the State of Israel?
If we ask an Arab who lives in Israel, ‘Who are you’, we will receive a variety of answers:
- Arab
- Palestinian
- Israeli
- Israeli-Palestinian Arab
- Palestinian -Israeli Arab
- Muslim Arab, Muslim
- Christian Arab, Christian
- Alda’hal Arab – from within
- A 1948 Arab
- One of us Arabs, etc
These answers testify to the confusion in the identity of a Palestinian Arab who lives in the State of Israel.
How do young Palestinian students define themselves? And how did they answer the question, ‘Who am I’?
The answers confirm
- This was the hardest question the students ever asked themselves
- This was the first time they asked themselves who they are
- This was the first time that someone asked them and was interested in them for themselves
- This question echoes inside and they fear expressing and consciously coping with it
- The students stated what was troubling them regarding the question of ‘Who am I’ clearly and honestly.
A sample of their answers:
- Till now I was scared and didn’t dare to ask
- ‘Who am I?’
- ‘Who is that me?’
- ‘From where am I?’
- ‘What makes me?’
- ‘Me?’
- ‘Weird question I’m asking myself’.
- ‘I don’t know who I am’.
Khansaa Diab is a lecturer and pedagogic instructor at Department of Special Education in Arab society at the David Yellin College of Education
