identity, identity as a self-reflexive process, sociological micromacro approaches, late modernity, pluralization and individualization, postindustrially modernized societies.
Abstract
This article contextualizes discourses on identity into a micro-macro discussion that has been intensinly evolving in contemporary sociological theory since the 1980s. That discussion gives expression to changes in the concept of identity that have come about as a result of the processes of individualization and pluralization in postindustrially modernized societies.These processes, characteristic of the so-called "second" or "reflexive" modernization (Beck 1986) are the most important reason for the newly awaken sociological interest for identity problems. They have steered the changes of identity in previously unavailable directions. In the context of "second modernization" or "high modernity" (Giddens 1991), identity is perceived as a self-reflexive individual project in the context of multiple chances offered for identity construction by the society. Identity discourses launched in this context enable a particularly successful integration of sociological micro and macro approaches.
