Cultural identity operates as a positioning, not an essence

Evidence

Stuart Hall (1985, 1988) has argued that cultural identity is “not an essence but a positioning,” a complex, contradictory, and shifting arena in which racial and ethnic categories become both the dominant way that hegemony and exploitation are experienced, and sites of hybridization and resistance (see also Lowe, 1996). — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 267

Categorization

• DEFINE: Hall’s precise formulation ‘not an essence but a positioning’ is a key definitional anchor worth keeping verbatim for racial-formation and ethnic-identity definitions across the vault.
• XREF: Buffers directly against Omi & Winant’s critique of ethnicity-based paradigms and against fixed-essence treatments of identity in race theory. — connects to: Being culturally cutting edge draws people into actively embracing a post-racial identity — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1269; Visible identity markers are everyday evidence that identity is performed, not natural. — Theresa M. Senft, Camgirls: Celebrity and Community in…, 252
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 267