by David J. Lobina
An apparently non-negotiable assumption of modern identity politics, though this was not always the case (see this regarding a certain non-philosopher), is that the individuation of personal characteristics is an intrinsic affair – that is, it is down to an individual to determine and state what they are, this often following from lived experience, and thereby constituting an exclusively internal matter. In a loose sense, this is unexceptional; it is common for one to simply assume the truth of what others say about themselves. After all, one doesn’t expect people to lie about where they are from, their background or what they believe in.
Granted that, the individuation of some personal characteristics does not appear to be entirely and absolutely an intrinsic matter: some identities seemingly depend upon the implicit (and sometimes explicit!) recognition of peers – an extrinsic and relational affair. In such cases, individuation would be partly determined by one’s environment, and thus not too dissimilar to what philosophers call “extensional conditions” (see here for an application to the debate around mental content). This specific point is not usually spelled out in discussions of personal identities, but it does turn up here and there. Something along these lines is implicitly assumed, uncontroversially so, I believe, to the individuation of national identities, the case I shall focus on here – and the argument is likely to generalise.
A recent review of Alex Byrne’s book Trouble with Gender, a piece that discusses the individuation of sexual and gender identities, is an example of a discussion where relational factors are alluded to even if they are not explicitly singled out. The author of the review contrasts sex-based and social accounts of gender, with the former defended as the default view (once upon a time, this would have been regarded as obvious and uncontroversial).[i]
In the case of defining the category woman, the two accounts differ in terms of the ‘methods of assessing’ whether a person is a woman or not. As the author puts it when discussing ‘adult human males with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (CAIS) [who] look to the naked eye just like adult human females’:
Reliance on the natural and highly reliable method of assessing whether someone is a woman by whether they look like an adult human female encourages classifying such males as women. In a different kind of case, some adult human males with uniformly male-typical primary and secondary sex characteristics say that they are women. Reliance on the natural and highly reliable method of assessing whether someone is a woman by whether they say that they are a woman similarly encourages classifying such males as women.
As such, the first method relies upon a person’s ‘perceptual recognitional capacities for sex’, a basic property of human cognitive systems from the perspective of evolution – if nothing else, and ‘like other species, humans need to act on information about the sex of their conspecifics in order to reproduce’. The second method, on the other hand, relies upon whether a person tells you they are a woman, which ought to settle the individuation, according to many proponents of identity politics (see, supra, on the non-philosopher).
The second method, thus, leaves no room to peer recognition or any feedback from how others view you, a relational component that is part of the first method. In other words, there is an extrinsic component to sex-based accounts of gender, according to which validation is partly determined by whether others recognise you as a woman (or a man).
The issue at hand is perhaps clearer when it comes to national identities. As argued previously at 3QD (Lobina passim; here and here), national identities arise when the people of a given area recognise and accept that they share something in common with each other, that they indeed belong to the same (imagined) community – that they are co-nationals, that is, with the “co” in co-nationals signifying a relational concept. So put, the validation of one’s national identity is partly external – it depends upon mutual peer recognition.[ii]
As ever, the devil is in the details, and the case I would like to discuss is that of a person with more than one national identity, and who furthermore has different feelings and relationships towards these national identities. As I shall argue, some of the identities such a person may adopt or accept, along with the different levels of validation for each identity, can depend upon the environment they find themselves in – in particular, the adoption of a given national identity can depend upon the way others view you, as a whole or otherwise, which can be very subtle. Not a simple matter, to be sure, but to tough out tough cases is one of the things science must do, as the aforementioned piece on Byrne’s book puts it.
To clarify what I have in mind, consider the following individual, then.
The person in question was born in the UK to non-British parents and grew up in South Europe, to their immense benefit. This person, moreover, was born in the UK at the right time, which is to say prior to 1982, when the UK adopted new nationality/citizenship legislation; thus, this person was automatically a UK citizen upon birth, with no extra conditions to be met (this last point will be a bit by-the-by, and I certainly do not wish to conflate national identities and citizenship, as David Papineau does in his Knowing the Score, with all the annoying references to the non-sport that cricket is).[iii]
The person grew up, as I have said, in South Europe, where it is common practice to teach English as a second language from primary school, though badly, with the variety of choice typically that of British English. This person ‘moved back’ to the UK to attend university at age 19 and has stayed in Blighty ever since, becoming an academic in the meantime; and now that they are in their mid-forties, the UK is the place they know best, and where they have spent over half of their lives.
As it happens, though, this person holds two more citizenships, having inherited them from their parents, has lived in the countries of these citizenships as a child, and thus speaks the respective languages as a native person (or close to) and is acquainted with the relevant cultural customs. Their English is also pretty good, almost native-like by now, though I suspect they have deep suspicions regarding British culture, if not outright disdain.
So, what sort of person is he, then? (let’s make him a man). Or rather, what national identity does he hold or exhibit? To answer this question, let us imagine a number of scenarios he might have found himself in over the years where he might have felt conflicted as to what national identity is closer to his heart, and let us pay special attention to the role the context necessarily would have played in these situations.
As the first scenario, I think it would be perfectly possible for this person to attend an academic conference in the US, be the only one around with a sort of British accent, and in fact be regarded as quite British in general by other (mostly American) attendees. And I imagine that in such cases he might very well play along and play the role of the British guy around, affected accent and all (but without getting naked in a bar after a few drinks, as they do). He did tell everyone he came from the UK, and with his British passport.
I can also imagine him travelling around Europe, again with his British passport, and speaking in British English, and here and there he would easily be regarded as British by most people. And he would happily play along here too. I can furthermore imagine him interacting with a German colleague at Oxford, realise this colleague sees him as quite British, at one point casually asking him ‘you went to a public [i.e., posh private] school here, right?’, and here too he might be happy to go along, and not even bother correcting his colleague (he probably went to a Catholic school somewhere in South Europe instead).
But I can’t imagine him adopting a British national identity in front of and surrounded by born-and-bred Brits, not least because in such cases he would not be viewed as British in any strict sense by these potential peers, whether or not he has British citizenship. And even if he were to insist that he was British in this context, which he would be very unlikely to do – one thing about national identities is that they easily give rise to contrast and separation (I’m not British, I’m not like you! There is no such thing as spag bol, you animals!) – he would receive little validation and recognition for it.
In this case, his identity would be that of a British-born person who grew up overseas and whose parents are not British – he would be from either X or an Y, depending on which country from South Europe he favours at that particular moment in time, the latter also dependent on what feedback he receive from his other potential co-nationals (see below). As a matter of fact, it would be perfectly normal for a born-and-bred Brit to ask him where he is from, quite unconcerned by the possibility that he might have been born in the UK.[iv]
I can even imagine him feeling a bit of an outsider in the countries where he grew up, given that he is been in the UK for most of his life by now, he does not speak any of his two native languages like he used to, or not quite like the people who live there, and it would be perfectly normal in this case for many of these co-nationals to see him as a bit British, to tell him he is becoming British, in fact, and that he is exhibiting a bit of a British temperament (they would say he is becoming English and has an English temperament, actually). He might well contest this and offer some push back (I am one of you!), but again, he might very well receive little validation and recognition, and in the event he would agree to some extent, feeling most at home in London by now (to give him his actual bearings now).
Where he might find some clearer validation is when his Italian and Spanish identities are in some sort of competition, to now give him his respective South European identities, with each community claiming him for themselves at times, but disowning him at others (and more often!). And here too he might well prefer one identity to the other depending on the context, and might even draw from lived experience to explain (nay, to justify; no! to rationalise) why he really is one or the other – I lived in X before than in Y, pater is from X too and was closer to him as a child, therefore… whilst soror, on the other hand, is closer to mater and she fits in with people from Y better, etc – but really it would be to no avail: his co-nationals would keep on accepting him and renouncing him as they go, and depending on whatever “recognitional capacities for kinship” they might exercise at each time, influenced (or not) by whatever beliefs and desires they favour, almost on a case-by-case basis (I am sure he is sick and tired of hearing about the calamitous Calatrava bridge in Venice, and that he has nothing to do with it).
In short, whatever lived experience our imagined person may be keen to reflect upon and exercise in his favour, and whatever he might feel about his own identity and person, there really is no escaping the fact that, for an identity such as one’s nationality (again, as opposed to citizenship), intrinsic and internal considerations only go so far. To be part of certain groups is to be recognised by other members as being part of the club – to receive peer recognition – and these are of course external, extrinsic, and relational conditions upon individuation. And I’m pretty sure one can apply and extend this argument to other identities, not least to sex and gender, but I will let others do that!
It is important, however, that I am clear as to what I am not saying here. I do not deny that intrinsic properties are important in determining some personal characteristics – speaking a given language natively and partaking to certain cultural customs is an intrinsic part of a person; what I am saying is that some intrinsic factors can often only go so far and cannot be taken to absolutely and exclusively determine one’s personal identities – peer recognition may well be the last arbiter here, and as such identities can’t but be regarded as partly relational concepts. There really is no point in claiming you are part of a given group if other members of the group do not see you as being part of them.
I also do not deny that lived experience, feelings, and beliefs can play a role in determining one’s identity, though I think these intrinsic factors can be easily overplayed and their effects exaggerated; most beliefs about one’s life story are the result of much internal narrative and indeed rationalisation, and thus they are not always particularly reliable, anyway. I would add, in fact, that biological features are often more relevant intrinsic factors in some identities, as seems to be the case for sexual/gender identities (I suspect this is also the case of sexual orientation and even race; in the case of the latter, in terms of the phenotypic traits usually associated to different race types, even if the idea of a race type is a social concept rather than biological per se).
I also do not mean to say that the different categories underlying personal identities are fluid, at least not in the way this point is usually made by proponents of identity politics (e.g., as in the often made claim that most if not all categories of personal identities fall within a spectrum instead of encompassing clear categories);[v] I take personal identities in general to be no more than a manner of speaking, a useful way to talk about each other and understand each other, but the categories are too broad and can only describe one’s character and personality in a shallow and superficial way. As I said last time around: there’s much more to a person that the pre-established ideas of what one is supposed to be like, and behave like, according to identity politics. And I now add that when it comes to individuals and understanding the person you have in front of you, personal identities (I much prefer to talk about ‘personal characteristics’, which downplays the general idea somewhat) are likely to perpetuate prejudices and stereotypes rather than anything else.
Indeed, identity politics can very easily devolve into a people pigeonholing process, separating and segregating, with everyone nicely placed in their own little boxes, and effectively divided. If anything, and if you really must identify with anything, don’t forget which class you belong to, the most important personal characteristic in a capitalist world. Capitalists, after all, know full well which side they are on.
[i] As a random example, this is an excerpt from a 2008 novel I happen to be reading now (I’m translating from the Italian):
Vanessa…is inarguably a very beautiful woman, only her teeth, and obviously the voice, betray the fact that Vanessa is man…Katia is very tall…with big hands, muscled legs…you realise Katia is a man (p. 130).
The excerpt recounts a rather ambivalent sexual encounter with drag queens, who may or may not be trans women; the point is that the main character is perfectly aware, by recognising certain features of biological males, that they are in fact men – a sex-based account of gender is simply assumed here.
[ii] It is worth recalling that a national identity typically emerges from the homogenisation process that a large population undertakes, and which manifests itself in terms, mostly, of a common language and a common culture. See Lobinas passim, cited supra.
[iii] I suspect Americans might have different intuitions to mine in what is to follow, given how US citizenship (and nationality) is closely tied up to place of birth, in addition to the rather multicultural and immigrant-based composition of the country. As an aside, I remember reading a blog post by the American philosopher Robert Paul Wolff in which he called Pietro Sraffa an Italian-English economist, on account that even though he lived and grew up in Italy and was an ethnic Italian, he had spent most of his adult life in England (not unheard of for an academic to stay at a place like Cambridge University for most of their life, though). That’s a bizarre take, even if Sraffa had become a naturalised British citizen at some point, which is unclear if it ever happened – he certainly was interred as an enemy alien during the Second World War. Sraffa was simply an Italian who lived in England.
[iv] “X-born” is an interesting phrase in English, especially its usage in the UK. It can be used to refer to Paula Rego as a Portuguese-born British artist, even though she was Portuguese through and through, becoming a naturalised British citizen as an adult, and it can also be used to refer to Elena Rybakina as a Russian-born Kazakhstani tennis player, even though she was born and grew up in Russia, is ethnic Russian, and apparently still lives in Russia, only becoming Kazakhstani in 2018 because the tennis federation of that country offered better support at that time (it usually goes without mention in the press that the practice of the Kazakhstani tennis federation to naturalise dozens of Russian tennis players is quite a dodgy one, but the story of Russian players supposedly leaving their countries is a bigger draw these days).
[v] There is certainly some truth to this, though, as I argued in my posts on national identities and the orbiting ideas of a common language, common culture, common ethnic group, etc – these are all fuzzy categories, useful for certain uses (as mentioned in the text), but nothing more. This is not quite what most proponents of identity politics have in mind when they talk about there being spectra in sex or gender identification, etc (in fact, biological sex is strongly binary, and even the idea of gender as a social construct is strongly bimodal: for the vast majority of people only two genders, piggybacking on the two biological sexes, are applicable; see here for some discussion).
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