Zygmunt Bauman Stuart Hall Summary

How do Zygmunt Bauman and Stuart Hall engage with the problem of

identity as a problem of modernity? How does Bauman extend the

discussion of the identity question in the context of globalization?

ANSHUMAN AGARWAL

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Identity and modernity go hand in hand. To talk about one without involving other can not

complete the discussion. The two main texts to consider here are : Zygmunt Bauman’s “Identity

in the globalizing world” and Stuart Hall’s “The question of cultural identity”. Both the authors

deal with the identity discourse that has taken place with the advent of modernity or what can be

thought of as how identity evolved in the modern times.

Zygmunt Bauman’s article revolves around the thought that “we have moved from a

This thought of theoretical antihumanism clearly rejects the basics

of modern philosophy that every human being has an universal essence which is individual.

The next course of dislocation to identity is due to Freud’s discovery of unconscious.Individual

was considered to be a rational subject with a fixed identity but Freud’s theory said that all

desires and identities are due to logic unconscious which is different from logic of reason. Again,

the interpretation of his texts has had a great impact on modern thought of identity. The identity

is considered to be formed out of fantasies of childhood and not to grow naturally. This happens

in the mirror phase of development where, a person sees his image of self in others and does

not has a whole image of self formed. This defines new relation between self and

This is in disagreement with Freud’s theory discussed by Hall where logic of

reason is not involved in formation of identity.

The identity that is formed is not something private to individual rather is formed by society and

similarly society is formed depending upon how individual identities are formed. This individual

identity formation is a transformation to actually become what one is. For example, if one wants

to be a king, he has to act like king not just in profession but in culture, traditions and what not.

This new era thus broke the existing divisions of identity and built new divisions based on how

people identified themselves to be. These new divisions which were supposed to be flexible

suddenly became ‘fact of nature’ and every individual’s task remained just to try and fit among

one of them. Slowly, new problems developed as none of the divisions provided complete

satisfaction to someone as they were free to move but were not able to do so.

The problem changed from “how to shift and get recognised” to “where to shift(with risk

analysis) and how to safeguard it” with the continuous flow of changing identities since the

divisions were themselves not fixed. This is in accordance with Foucault’s view that with