Identity Complex

In seemingly exhaustive arguments about identity as a category of analysis, we have made a critical errorone that Michael Hames-Garca sets out to correct in this revisionary look at the making and meaning of social identities. We have asked how separate identitiesof race, class, ethnicity, gender, and sexualitycome to intersect. Instead, Hames-Garca proposes, we should begin by understanding such social identities as mutually constituting one another. Grounded in both theoretical and political practicesin the lived realities of peoples experienceIdentity Complex reinvigorates identity as a key concept and as a tool for the pursuit of social justice. Hames-Garca draws on a wide range of examples to show that social identities are central to how exploitation works, such as debates about the desirability of sexual minority identities in postcolonial contexts, questions about the reality of race, and the nature of the U.S. prison crisis. Unless we understand precisely how identities take shape in relation to each other and within contexts of oppression, he contends, we will never be able to eradicate discrimination and social inequality. By analyzing the social interdependence of identities, Hames-Garca seeks to enable the creation of deep connections of solidarity across differences.