Reconsidering Social Identification

This volume investigates how four socially constructed identities (race gender class and caste) can be rethought as matrices designed to accumulate various kinds of socio-economic values and to translate and transfer these values from one group to another. Essays in the anthology also attempt to compare the mechanisms deployed by various groups to consolidate identificatory investments. Drawn mainly for the fields of literary and cultural studies the essays are grouped in four categories. Essays collected under âTheoretical Approachesâ scrutinize the relative value of various approaches; those collected under âConsiderations of Race Gender and Sexual Orientationâ examine the interaction between these three categories in formation of identities; those grouped under âComparative Analysis of African-American and Dalit Writingâ provide comparative analyses of the literary productions of these two oppressed groups; and finally those under âThe Persistence of Racialized Perceptionsâ focus on the role of ideologically inflected perception of European colonizers and the persistence of such perception in the categorization and treatment of colonial migrants to the metropolis. . Language: English