What identity construction theory? There are a great number of theories
posited in relation to identity. It would seem the first response to the word
‘identity’ is to that which identifies the individual, those many matters which
when taken as a whole correspond to what one understands to ‘be’ a specific
individual. It refers to everything that goes into the construction of an
identity.
 |
| Plato |
In my respectful submission, the envelope containing that material can be
seen as the Khôra. This term is used by Plato in the Timaeus. It is a philosophical term “indicating a receptacle, a
space or an interval. It is
neither being nor nonbeing but an interval between in which the
"forms" were originally held. Khôra "gives space" and has
maternal overtones (a womb, matrix).”
Heidegger references the
khora as a clearing in which being happens or takes place. It is the Lichtung, the ‘clearing’ in our own
existence”. The path leads on to the brain and ‘spatially embedded complex
adaptive systems’. It is language which describes and defines these systems.
Heidegger claims that Language is the House of Being. Man dwells in this
house’. ‘Language is the irradiant-concealing coming to presentness of Being
itself’ (Sprache ist lichtend-verbergende Ankunft des Seins selbst, in which lichtend points to Lichtung, ‘the
clearing’.)
 |
| Kristeva |
Julia Kristeva deploys the
term as part of her analysis of the difference between the semiotic and
symbolic realms, in that Plato's concept of "khora" is said to
anticipate the emancipatory employment of semiotic activity as a way of evading
the allegedly phallocentric character of symbolic activity (signification
through language), which, following Jacques Lacan, is regarded as an inherently
limiting and oppressive form of praxis. Julia Kristeva articulates the 'chora'
in terms of a pre-signifying state: 'Although the chora can be designated and
regulated, it can never be definitively posited: as a result, one can situate
the chora and, if necessary, lend it a topology, but one can never give it
axiomatic form.'
 |
| Lacan |
Jacques Derrida uses
"khôra" to name a radical otherness that "gives place" for
being. El-Bizri builds on this by more narrowly taking "khôra" to
name the radical happening of an ontological difference between being and beings
(Nader El-Bizri, 2004, 2011). Derrida argues that the subjectile is like
Plato’s chora, Greek for space, receptacle or site. Plato proposes that the
chora rests between the sensible and the intelligible, through which everything
passes but in which nothing is retained. For example an image needs to be held
by something, just as a mirror will hold a reflection. For Derrida,
"khôra" defies attempts at naming or either/or logic which he
attempts to "deconstruct".
 |
| Derrida |
Derrida's collaborative
project with Architect Peter Eisenmann, in Chora
L Works: Jacques Derrida and peter Eisenman, proposed the construction of a
garden in the Parc de la Vilette in Paris, which included a sieve, or harp-like
structure that Derrida envisaged as a physical metaphor for the receptacle-like
properties of the chora. The concept of the chora, distinguished by its elusive
properties, would have become a physical reality had the project been
realised.
Following Derrida, John
Caputo describes khôra as: neither
present nor absent, active or passive, the good nor evil, living nor non-living
- but rather atheological and nonhuman - khôra is not even a receptacle. Khôra
has no meaning or essence, no identity to fall back upon. She/it receives all
without becoming anything, which is why she/it can become the subject of neither
a philosopheme nor mytheme. In short, the khôra is tout autre [fully other],
very.
Which brings me back to what
identity construction theory. Is it the result of deconstruction?
What can I write about
writing identity?
No comments:
Post a Comment