Social Identity and Social Location Analysis Education Essay (Essay Sample)

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Running head: SOCIAL IDENTITY & SOCIAL LOCATION

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Social Identity & Social Location: A Narrative
Student Name
College/University Affiliation
SOCIAL IDENTITY & SOCIAL LOCATION

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Social Identity & Social Location: A Narrative


1. Introduction
The questions of identity and location are easier answered for a distant, researchable subject. To be a subject of identity and location self-inquiry is at best hard and at worst biased. Blinded by a string of biases – more so if belonging to a privileged class, race, gender, and/or sexual orientation – I find my current story of my social identity and social location is only an initial attempt of understanding – of self and society. This story, embedded in identity politics and social research, is rooted in a complex web of social interactions in a given local community I have grown up in and, broadly, in Canada at large. The experience of a new, non-white, non-English speaking, immigrant is, perhaps, an experience I connect to yet I do not practically share. Moreover, changing gender, sexual orientation and/or experiencing a growing inequality arising from an income gap and/or social marginalization are still experiences I connect to yet I do not practically share, either.
In Canada, just as immigrant-receiving countries, social identity and social location are inseparable from an original heritage, distant or fresh, defining an individual’s, a community’s and/or a social group’s experience not once yet for generations to come. To grow up white in an all white province in Canada is, historically, a privilege, white privilege. In earlier decades, white privilege – my white privilege – used to be accepted for granted and even more so flashed as a badge of honor. Today, identity and location are issues of intense review. The growing demands to restore rights – to land, language, lifestyle and more – to native and immigrant populations usher in an irreversible pattern of social identity and social location entitlements. Privileged, white and female, I find myself – just as all similarly privileged souls in Canada – experiencing a