Identity Representation and Intersubjectivity

Aperusal of identity debate within international relations (IR) suggests that both the constructivists and poststructuralists share similarities despite their antagonisms, reluctant in addressing the possibility of an enduring identity informing a government’s worldview at any given time and space. This lack is particularly acute when exploring the politics of memory in Northeast Asia, for instance. This chapter expounds on the possibility of analyzing identity from a philosophical realist perspective as opposed to the strong discursivity prevalent within postpositivist IR. There are several issues, which cannot be addressed by it alone;1 and social theory provides us with a useful platform for addressing them. By exposing variations in the approaches to identity, I highlight the shortcomings of antirealist pull in IR, and suggest that philosophical realism provides a better conceptual tool for taking resilient identities seriously. To be sure, narratives will also be taken seriously; but I pay closer attention to a reified identity that transcends generations of policy elites as an important focal point. A simple description of the terms is in order. On the one hand, antirealism is marked by its ontological skepticism,2 arguing that when social contexts change, meanings attached to various speech acts also undergo transformation. Likewise for identity, antirealism argues that it is never fixed;3 that it has no ontological status apart from the representations which constitute it,4 and evolutions in social context entail changes in identity narratives—which are always shifting, unstable, and contested.

Aesthetics · Context (archaeology) · Epistemology · Geography · Identity (music) · Intersubjectivity · Linguistics · Narrative · Perspective (graphical) · Political science · Politics · Representation (politics) · Social group · Social identity theory · Social science · Sociology · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · International Relations and Foreign Policy · Law · Philosophy · Political Conflict and Governance

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