Identity and Its Transformative Dynamics in Knowledge Era: Some Critical Reflections

Abstract

Collective identities of people have remained largely transitional despite largely remaining rooted in certain inherited essentialities. The essential dynamics of identity often get negotiated with various forces and processes like those of the economic transformation, technological reorientation, collective mobilisation, modernisation, colonisation, globalisation, penetration of information and communication technologies (ICTs), mass and social media among others. The contemporary society is marked by the fast transformation of its economic order from agriculture and industry to knowledge/information-driven post-industrial society, fast transference of information, images, ideas, services, goods and people across spaces and the borderless expansion of ICTs. These have paved the way for the emergence of a new social order which has been widely described as the knowledge society. Within this emerging economic, social and technological order, new varieties of social interaction and solidarities are constructed from within the pre-existing varieties causing a good deal of fluidity of collective identities on the one hand and their consolidation on the other. Thus, with fast social transformation and increasing interconnectivity and mobility of people across the globe on the one hand and consolidation of new forms of social collectivities on the other, the contours of contraction and configuration of identities have undergone phenomenal change. Against such a backdrop, this article is an attempt to develop an understanding of the nuances of identity: its essence, construction, transformation and configuration within the broad processes of social transition. This article is arranged in five sections. The Dynamics of Identity section deals with the dynamics of identity. In the Social Movements. Modernity, Colonisation, Globalisation and Identity: Changing Facets of Fluidity and Solidarity section, the processes of construction and reconfiguration of identity in the context of social movements, modernity, colonisation and globalisation are discussed. The key dimensions of the emergence of knowledge society are explained in the Emerging Knowledge Society and its Key Dynamics section. In the Solidarity and Fluidity in Identity: The Emerging Facets section, the emerging facets of solidarity and fluidity of identity are elucidated. Finally, the Conclusion section makes the concluding arguments.