Electric Identity
In blogger, one of the first things we are asked to do is to identify ourselves in various ways. We also have an option to be as "private" as we like. I put this in quotations because privacy itself is a fraught concept that is connected to classic liberal ideas about property and citizenship. It's a modern idea, unlike "public," which is much older. Anyway, we are asked to identify ourselves with keywords. We can choose any ones we like, but we're told that this will allow other people with similar interests to find us. Keywords are key to community in the blogging world.
Most people pick things that really describe who they think they are. This is not a postmodern way to understand identity by any means -- it assumes that the markers we choose do express who we are, and how we want to be seen too.
So, it turns out that one of my favourite books ever, Raymond Williams' Keywords, is still as important as it was in 1976. Williams thought of Keywords, a collection of the meanings of words important to a culture that show in themselves how social change works, as "the record of an inquirty into a vocabulary: a shared body of words and meanings in our most general discussions, in English, of the practices and institutions which we group as culture and society."
When we are asked to identify ourselves, we are asked to participate in a larger world where these meanings are understood, and shared. We are asked to accept that the meanings of the terms we assign belong to us, but also to others, and that even if we ourselves exceed these terms (as we must), we use them as a kind of currency. We know that when we identify ourselves as "cyclist" or "surfer" or "lesbian" that we are asking other people to read us in a certain way.
Very little research on identity actually takes the fact that it works by keyword into account. It is just more obvious on the internet than it is in our offline lives, because in the case of the internet we use search engines as a kind of grammar for identity that help us look for sameness (and then, for community).
More on this later -- I haven't really figured this out for myself yet.
Most people pick things that really describe who they think they are. This is not a postmodern way to understand identity by any means -- it assumes that the markers we choose do express who we are, and how we want to be seen too.
So, it turns out that one of my favourite books ever, Raymond Williams' Keywords, is still as important as it was in 1976. Williams thought of Keywords, a collection of the meanings of words important to a culture that show in themselves how social change works, as "the record of an inquirty into a vocabulary: a shared body of words and meanings in our most general discussions, in English, of the practices and institutions which we group as culture and society."
When we are asked to identify ourselves, we are asked to participate in a larger world where these meanings are understood, and shared. We are asked to accept that the meanings of the terms we assign belong to us, but also to others, and that even if we ourselves exceed these terms (as we must), we use them as a kind of currency. We know that when we identify ourselves as "cyclist" or "surfer" or "lesbian" that we are asking other people to read us in a certain way.
Very little research on identity actually takes the fact that it works by keyword into account. It is just more obvious on the internet than it is in our offline lives, because in the case of the internet we use search engines as a kind of grammar for identity that help us look for sameness (and then, for community).
More on this later -- I haven't really figured this out for myself yet.
2 Comments:
Not only are you cute and funny, you are also brilliant. I search by keywords for likely souls with somethings in common. I don't think of it as identity in the limiting kind of way. But yes, and I have more than one blog/journal so my different IDs don't get confused, or so I don't give too much away at one time. And then there's online dating, LOL.
So here am I the semi-retired hippie, lesbian, feminist, mountaineer, mom, gadget-lover, nature lover, science addict, folkie, classical, occasional rocker and disco dancer. Each of these defines me, and limits me from the others. In life I reject labels - I was never a joiner - but these words start to describe me. But none answer to my humour, my outlook, my values (except generally) or the personal things that make me endearing to some and annoying to others.
A starting point only.
Okay, finally. Nice comments--all of 'em!
I would say that what you describe is how we all deal with identity in our lives. We present some parts of ourselves, and not others. But in the offline world, we still answer to a proper name that is legally binding. Once that relationship is stretched or severed in the online world, all sorts of other things can happen.
I'd say that keywords aren't labels. Labels are things that are supposed to describe us, but of course as you say we always must exceed these terms. Rather the way my fridge jam grows mould, and so the label really isn't accurate anymore (it's intelligent life, not jam!). Keywords show something of us, but we use 'em more like means of communication between people where we share some of the terms. Or...we end up in a discussion about what terms mean because "lesbian," for instance, can mean different things to different people and so we gotta talk about what it means and so it goes....
Blah blah.
Anyway, here are some keywords for you that would be mine and of course I'd exceed 'em all:
intellectual
feminist
player of video games
novice climber
hiker
gardener
English Canadian
lesbian
quizzical Christian
reader
pro-cat
leftie
cultural theorist
geek
cyclist
hockey player
curious about the world
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