Social Identity and Social Location Analysis Education Essay

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Running head: SOCIAL IDENTITY & SOCIAL LOCATION

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Social Identity & Social Location: A Narrative
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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
SOCIAL IDENTITY & SOCIAL LOCATION

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new sense of identity and location reorientation as new claims on different identities and locations continue to inform old, established ones. To put matters into perspective, a hard look at, or perhaps forward to, Canada’s response to and understanding of identity, power, privilege and meritocracy, race and ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation is required. This story, my story, of social identity and social location is, accordingly, a personal narrative embedded in a grand Canadian narrative of identity, power, privilege and meritocracy, race and ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation.
Identity is paradoxical. I identify as white and female (or white female?). In Canada, just as in immigrant receiving countries, identity is instantly recognizable by color, race, accent, social segment and, perhaps, zip code. To live in a sea of whiteness (I do) could blind one into different seas of browns, blacks, and yellows (or, as in more “progre...