Draft: August 2003
9
Identity might be good strategy today because we live in a world that is more aware of
how important and fragile are the attachments between individuals and their
communities. But this alone does not detract from the importance of these claims nor
answer the question posed here of whether framing claims in terms of identity reveals
features of disputes involving minority groups that are crucial to resolving these disputes
fairly.
III
The challenges to framing political or legal claims in terms of identity either start with a
concern that identity is distorted when subject to political or legal processes, or start with
a concern that democracy is endangered by entertaining identity claims. The first starting
point raises a set of problems which I call ‘authenticity problems’ because they focus in
the first instance on the authentic nature of identity and on the ways in which identity is
distorted within political or legal debate. The second starting point raises ‘strategic reason
problems’ which focus, in the first instance, on the nature of democracy and trace the
ways in which democratic discourse or processes are distorted by focusing on identity
claims. Most critics raise both types of problems. Here I examine each type in turn.
The Authenticity Problem
The authenticity problem arises because core features of identity can be easily
manipulated within a political context and thereby identity is easily distorted. These core
features include the deeply personal, non-negotiable, subjective, and fluid nature of
identity which makes it the sort of thing that ought not to be politically or legally reified.
Convention