Recognition of Misrecognition

The notions of identity much like those of the feminine experience have historically been limited to totalizing categories. These categories had a monolithic effect of the identity of the person being recognized by those categories. The problem is that in today’s world often hailed as the global village categorization is a negative thing when expressed by individuals who are not the other. However, to each other everyone is not us and everyone is the other. The traditional categories of race, gender, ethnicity and age help to build social identity but they also help to single out differences that can be used as means of marginalization by bigger or more powerful social groups. This is often the case of immigrant populations as is clearly depicted in the film Head On. The main protagonist struggles with among other things the complex issues of being an immigrant, having a socially deviant sexuality and being unemployed from a working class family. The thing about identity is that it requires the affirmation of other members of the same community or the recognition of said identity by ‘other’ communities “identities are not simply given, but emerge as complex and conflicted acts of self identification and identification by others” (Noble, 877:2009). The friction arises out of misrecognition either of the self or with the significant others. In the case of Ari, I would say he had an identity crisis especially in the scene where he screams out racial slurs at the other minority group because in that instance he recognizes himself to be part of the larger dominant group instead of what he really is which is a part of the immigrant population. His main problems stem from the inability to reconcile social identity with personal identity.

However, the categories serve as appoint of reference for determining interaction among groups and individuals “These are the ones that frame our everyday perceptions of others” (Noble, 877:2009). The categories however focus too much on the differences instead of the similarities and then the differences become agents of social expulsion. Such differences are seen in the social constructions of masculinity which when faced with a different kind of masculinity become destructive. Examples of this are seen the world over in the vehement opposition to same sex relationships or anything that is not heteronormative. Interesting is the fact that these ‘other’ identities reinforce or serve to uphold the very identities which the dominant or mainstream groups claim to be protecting by quelling all others. The fact is that all societies are comprised of some measure of otherness even if it is not based on typical categories. Others can be vegetarians in a racially hegemonic community or Goths in a mainstream teenage society. Often what happens is that one person becomes the symbol for his or her entire social group and takes on the crimes of the entire group if any “individuals become bearers of collective ethnic identities” (Noble, 878:2009).

The process of making visible those who are different is meant to be seen as a good thing as a means of maintaining cultural heritage in the case of immigrant populations. For the host population it is a window to the rest of the world of broadening of perspectives and understandings of the world through embracing the different groups. In reality however what really happens is either the group is engulfed by the dominant group or expelled “The politics of recognition often assumes that the goal of multiculturalism is to make visible the differences of others in order that we appreciate them. It has also assumed that invisibility is tantamount to social death” (Noble, 883:2009). Again in the film Head On we see that Ari’s denial of his sexuality and desire to distance himself from his migrant identity leaves him in a place where his identity is unknown because he does not identify with what he is and he is not what he wants to be. Earlier this year the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, conceded to the fact that in Germany multicultural integration has failed and as a result of her statement caused neighboring European states such as Slovakia, Britain, the Netherlands and Poland to reconsider the structure of their current immigration policies. Acknowledging the failures of society and the problems that stem from it enables a space for the possibility of social change. The polar opposite is seen in the case of Uganda where the existence of another form of sexuality other than the mainstream heterosexual relations has been dealt with in a manner which is reminiscent of ethnic cleansing. The process of globalization has made issues of masculinity and identity very complex in that the way in which this aspects of individual identity are perceived the world over are now known to all. This creates conflict in areas where maybe the tolerance of social difference would be seen as an imported notion that could mess with the identity of the nation as a whole. However, the identity of the nation as a whole is messed with because they are then condemned for the inability to grant the “other” groups their basic human rights and freedoms as stipulate in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. It has often been said that the need of sub cultural groups for attention is their undoing in that it draws attention to their difference and instead of making their situation better worsens it by enlarging their capacity for victimization.

Consequently what the negation between the multiple aspects of identity is about is not really even about the people who embody the identities. I feel that more and more identity becomes the means that justifies more tangible ends. Identity would not matter if for example dominant groups didn’t feel as though migrant groups take away jobs or if heterosexual men didn’t feel as though the existence of gay sexual relations didn’t challenge their masculinity. In a world that has become borderless and accessible to all one would think notions of identity would become irrelevant in the face of more pressing issues like world hunger and global warming.